


Right Here Waiting

by Aluxra



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Book/Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Blood and Gore, Centres are more than what they seem, Dream Pirates, Endgame Blacklight, Endgame Jackrabbit, F/M, Feels, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Mild D/s, Mild Kink, Pitch Black Being an Asshole, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Violence, darkish, magic shenanigans, memory shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-14 20:56:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5758582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aluxra/pseuds/Aluxra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Guardians have been around for longer than anyone realises, returning time and again to protect the next generation against the growing darkness. When a familiar face returns to the Guardians, they enter a race against time to not only protect the children of the world, but their own immortality as well, from the united forces of enemies old and new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few chapters written up for this, but no overall plot outline which may lead to a major failing on my part. I am currently writing up the outline so I can plan the chapters out more easily, but I don't know how fast I can write up the rest of the story so the update schedule, as usual for me, is up in the air.
> 
> The tags relate to the entirety of the story, not just the first chapter, and more might be added as the story progresses.
> 
> Jack and Nightlight are two separate characters in this story, for anyone confused by the pairings. I can not see them as anything other than two separate characters despite the reveal that Jack and Nightlight are one and the same in book!canon.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! If you wish to let me know what you think of the fanfic, I'd love to hear your thoughts C:

**_Extremis, 72 Golden Age_ **

The ground split beneath their feet with a thunderous crack, sending the armies to their knees. Slick, oozing darkness spilled from the deep crevices in the barren land, long thick tendrils of ropey shadows reaching for each other as they swarmed, coalescing into Hive-mind behemoths of putrid, oily flesh and bubbling skin.

Extra appendages spun like knotted cord from the axial skeleton forged from thousands upon thousands of Fearlings, the million eyes speckling their bodies roving over the legion of armies at their feet. After the Fearlings came the hoards of Nightmare Men, their shadowy weapons gripped in clawed hands. The battlefield was the vast, empty plains on the abandoned planet Extremis, where the Fearling stronghold had been rumoured to be hidden. They had all thought it a ploy, gathering the Guardians and their armies for the few measly pickings of Fearlings they had met in the high sun of mid day, until the dark clouds had rolled in from the south, too fast and heavy to be natural, and the darkness rose as titans, blocking out what little light pierced through the thick clouds that blacked out the sky.

E. Aster Bunnymund was the first to rise.

He gripped a weapon in each of his eight arms, his glowing staff tipped with a haloed golden egg held in his highest right hand. Behind him, the Pookan army of Ra-Marah gathered themselves and reformed, a deafening roar rippling through their numbers, rising like a tidal wave and shaking the ground as the darkness descended upon the armies of Light.

Nicholas St. North leapt into the air astride his giant lunar reindeer, its pelt glimmering silver even in the shadow of the Fearlings as he led the charge against the nearest Hive-mind, the Lunarian army following him fearlessly into the fray upon their own steeds. His twin sabres drawn, glowing as golden as the sun, he dove into the darkness as it briefly recoiled from the potent Light.

'Remember men, they feed upon fear, so starve the bastards!' Toothiana bellowed through her feathered helm, her warriors replying with a mighty war cry, following their warrior queen into the melee of the airborne battle against the living darkness.

On the ground, Bunnymund and his Pookan brethren swarmed the Hive-mind’s feet, clamouring up the bubbling, writhing limbs and slicing into the hoards. Fearlings rose up from the swirling mass, detaching from their Hive-mind and leaping at the Pooka with ear splitting shrieks. All across the battlefield, the titans strode though their forces, slamming their great taloned fists to the ground, sweeping away men and women as if they were flies. The archers emptied their quivers into them, their shots striking true but for naught: where one Fearling fell, another took its place in the melee.

Bunnymund grappled with a larger Fearling, his crescent moon daggers lost in the tangle when a blinding ice-blue light illuminated the battlefield for miles. The temperature plummeted, and Bunnymund grinned: if it was cold where he was, Jack and the Artican mages had dropped it to an inhospitable freeze across the battlefield. He snapped the neck of the Fearling, leaving it crumpled on the ground and spun around in time to see one, two, three! Hive-minds crumble far in the south, toppling over and shaking the earth, the tremors jittering through his feet and up his legs till he felt it through his whole body.

An invigorated cheer rose through the ranks at the sight of the pinpricks of white – the Ice Mages of Artica - swarming over their fallen enemies and the onslaught continued with renewed vigour despite the sudden chill, the mages the only race of people in the universe who were unaffected by such vicious temperatures, and they used it to their advantage. Domes of blinding light encapsulated the ground where they fought, tearing through the Fearlings, chilling the air till every breath Bunnymund drew was ice, but it was a sacrifice they all made to take on such monstrosities, their breath forming wisps in front of their faces as they continued to fight. Above them, the clouds lit up with cannon fire, a firework display of raining gold sparks and burning metal, rumbling shots echoing through the cloud cover like thunder as the shooting stars, led by the fifth Guardian Sanderson Mansnoozie, battled Dream Pirates and Nightmare Men in the higher atmosphere.

It was just one more battle in an endless war against the ravenous, all consuming darkness. It ebbed and flowed like the tide, the darkness closing in only to be pushed back until it found another opening. They had been fighting the war for as long as they could remember, and when they had been chosen as Guardians, they had been granted a strength and power that none other could match. It allowed them to win, again and again, and even when they lost, they would always return to fight another day. Now they were winning, swarming the colossi and bringing them down, forcing them back into the shadows from where they'd crawled. It was slow, laborious: they lost men and women across the dozens of regiments upon the field, but still they battled.

Then a column of golden white light erupted from the middle of the battlefield, drawing all eyes towards it. Beside it, a dark twin spiralled up with it, releasing a new wave of living darkness upon the battlefield. They bore eyes of gold and glittered like obsidian, turning not against the Guardians and their armies, but the Fearlings and Nightmare Men swarming the warriors, and the Golden Generals, astride giant nightmares, commanded together the light and darkness in a final wave of attack, and the battle was finally won.

*

'The dead have been gathered and accounted for,' Kozmotis explained, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked over the papers and maps spread out across the table. Warm, pulsing orbs the size of fists hovered around the tent over their heads, casting a soft, golden light across the Guardians. Kozmotis gently pushed one out of his way, sending it bobbing closer to the door as he eased himself into the chair behind the table. 'The funeral rites are being carried out if you wish to attend for any brethren you have lost.'

'The only family I have is here in this tent,' Toothiana replied from where she sat, slumping back in her seat from exhaustion. She pushed her thick black coils of hair out of her face, having released it from the tight braid she wore in battle. Her iridescent green feathers shone like jewels under the light, ruffling around her neck with every tired breath. Her large, clawed feet scraped the ground as she stretched out her legs.  ‘I am grateful those are funerals I need not attend this day.'

‘Mages are returned to the snowfall by their family. It is a private matter, and as Tooth said, none of my family has fallen,' Jack added from where he stood beside Bunny, wrapped in his arms. Bunny smiled and nuzzled the soft white locks of his lover as Jack leaned into him, watching Sandy's pictograms dance above his head, agreeing with the other Guardians. North, stroking his dark salt and pepper beard, did not comment from his post near the doorway, his eyes focused on something else far away from the tent he stood inside. He had lived without a home or family before he was chosen: a drifter of no known origin, he mourned no one personally except for the six people in front of him.

Kozmotis nodded, his lips quirking at the corners in a tired but honest smile. 'I'm glad you are all alive.'

'Yes, yes, we're all one big happy wonderfully dysfunctional family,' Pitch drawled from where he lay, stretched out on the cot along the side wall, one arm thrown over his eyes. Kozmotis gave his brother, the Guardian of Fear and Darkness, a withering stare.

'It is worth being thankful for the safe return of our friends,' he said. 'It is a grievous occasion to lose a brother.'

Pitch smiled coldly, and didn’t even move his arm to spare his brother a glance. 'How would _you_ know?'

Kozmotis winced, pained, and looked down at the papers in front of him. The mood darkened; the air tense between the seven Guardians. Kozmotis and Pitch were less inclined to see eye to eye as opposed to trade eye for eye in their spats.

Kozmotis Black was the elder of the two, the golden child with vivid red hair and warm yellow eyes, like twin suns shining through thick lashes. He cut an impressive figure in his gold and white armour, proud and serious, the morale of the men invigorated when they saw him storm the battlefield. The man was a living myth, long before he was chosen as a Guardian. Pitchiner Black, on the other hand, was cloaked in black as deep as the shadows they fought. He was black haired and grey skinned, the price he paid for his connection to the darkness, but his eyes still burned molten gold: the windows to his soul showing it remained untainted, despite his acerbic tongue and grating personality.

Even so, people were wary of him, as they should be: he walked a fine line between controlling the darkness and it controlling him. For when Dream Pirates and Nightmare Men and Fearlings fell on the battlefield, they did not truly die, for darkness could not be killed. Instead, when they were blessed with victory, Pitch would walk the field, a vulture feasting, and absorb the dark creatures into himself. He was a living cage, trapping them in his own mind and unleashing them to do his bidding come the next melee. It was a constant topic of conversation between the soldiers, sharing a great delight that the darkness could be used as a weapon against itself, unaware of the burden it placed upon Pitch and his brother.

Thick gold bands around his wrists and throat shone brightly, pulsing with energy identical to the small diamond dagger hanging from the gold chain around Kozmotis's neck. The other Guardians ignored it, just as they ignored how dark Pitch's skin had become after feasting; his usual light grey complexion darkened to the colour of thick smoke, eerily reminiscent of the Fearlings they fought.

'C'mon, Pitch,' Jack said. He wriggled out of Bunny’s hold and wandered over to him, dropping unceremoniously onto the cot and patting Pitch’s knee. 'No need to bring the mood down when there's a victory to celebrate. Let's grab some drinks and I'll regale you with how I won the battle.'

'Oh, _you_ won the battle?' Pitch replied, as he threw his arm behind his head and looked down at Jack, cocking an eyebrow. 'Here I thought it was our division that won for us while you were, what, warming up?'

'Uh, I didn't see you take down _three_ Fearling Hive-minds,' Jack bragged, leaning back against the tent wall. 'You're welcome.'

'My compliments to the chef,’ Pitch teased, relaxing.

Jack bowed his head jokingly, grinning. Pitch returned his smile, rolling his eyes. He sat up, nudging Jack with one foot before swinging his long legs over the side of the cot. 'You mentioned drinks, I think I will join you, and regale you with how the hero today is _me_ ,' Pitch said. Kozmotis cleared his throat. 'Oh fine, us.'

'Oooh, check you out, “hero”,' Jack chuckled.

'Spare me the empty honour, but I'll take the glory.'

'Actually,' Kozmotis interrupted. 'We need patrols around the camp border, to make sure it is secure.'

The others groaned. 'Kozmotis!'

'The darkness has been despatched of,' Pitch said with a scowl. 'I didn't miss any.'

'I trust you when you say that Pitch,' Koz replied, placating his brother. 'But stragglers may have escaped the initial battle and are hiding beyond the camp borders. Despite our victory, we lost more than our share of warriors today. I don’t want to lose anymore. If there are any darkness left crawling in the dirt, I want them dealt with so we can all sleep soundly tonight.'

'No rest for the wicked,' Jack sighed, glanced at Pitch with a grin. 'And even less for the “heroes”.'

‘Shut up, Jack.’

'I’m sure it will be short work,' Kozmotis promised. 'Then you may drink, without sending yourself into a stupor.'

'You know all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?'

'I'm sure Jack will survive,' Koz drawled, 'since he has his Bunny to play with.'

Jack blushed and shut up, looking away. Bunny avoided meeting Koz's gaze too, feigning innocence. In close quarters, it was difficult not to hear what went on among each other, from brothers fighting to lovers fucking. It was a wonder Sandy didn't despise them all for the rare nights he actually needed sleep and received very little.

'Well, alright men,' Toothiana said, standing and stretching out her vast, feathered wings as far as the tent permitted. 'The sooner we patrol, the sooner we sleep, or not. Where will you have us, Koz?'

'You and Sanderson scout the higher trails leading around the North side of the mountains,' he ordered, indicating the path on the map around their camp. 'Nicholas and Bunnymund will take the East trail while Jack takes the West. Pitch and I will scout the Southern path and meet up with Jack at the intersection here.'

'Woah, wait,' Bunny interjected, straightening. 'I don't want Jack scouting by himself.'

'Bunny! I'll be fine. Stop worrying.'

'No, I agree with Bunny,' North said, speaking for the first time that evening. 'You used much energy today, will be good to have someone watching your back.'

'I can scout the South border myself,' Pitch said. 'Considering I am the only one who can dispose of them completely, you go with Jack.'

Koz shook his head. 'The West is too close to the battlefield. The Artican mages have reduced it to an ice waste –’

Jack smiled proudly.

‘- The temperatures are below freezing, Jack is the only one who can stand such temperatures and still perform at peak ability.’

'Then get some of the Ice Mages to help him,' Bunny argued.

'No, Bunny,' Jack said, shaking his head. 'Leave them to mourn or celebrate or sleep. The only ones who are fit to patrol are already at the guard posts, or waiting to rotate. We can handle this ourselves.'

'I can go with Jack,' North offered, scratching his salt and pepper beard. 'I will take Rudolf with me. He will be extra set of eyes, very good in the dark.'

'That leaves Bunnymund scouting the East alone,' Koz countered.

'No, it leaves _me_ scouting the South alone,' Pitch replied. 'You scout along the Eastern trail with Bunnymund.'

'Pitch...'

'It's fine,' Pitch interrupted with a wave of his hand. 'I prefer to work alone, anyway.'

There was a pause, the brothers sharing a stubborn look between them, refusing to back down from each other.

Kozmotis sighed and relented. 'Very well. Toothiana and Sanderson, Nicholas and Jack, Pitch, Bunnymund, gather anything you need and meet up at the intersections here and here in thirty minutes.' He gestured to the necessary points on the map circling the cluster of dots that represented their camp. ‘Follow the paths this way, check in with the guard posts at these intervals, until Bunnymund and I will meet with Toothiana and Sanderson, and Pitch will meet with Nicholas and Jack at these two intersections and return to camp.'

'We can grab what we need in ten,' Tooth replied. 'Let's not dither.'

'Very well. You have your orders. Go.'

* 

Ten minutes later, North, Jack and Rudolf were heading towards the West border of camp when Bunny loped over to them, staff strapped to his back and his limbs totalling four instead of ten.

'Bunny,' North greeted. 'You will be late meeting Koz.'

'Naw mate, you will,' he replied, drawing himself up onto his hind legs when he reached them. 'Save yer old bones from the cold, I'll take the freeze wi' Jack.'

'Bones are not old,' North replied, mock grumpy. Jack laughed, sharing a grin with Bunny.

'If yer bones aren't old, yer grey hairs beg t' differ,' Bunny jested.

'You have more grey hairs than I.’

'He has grey fur!' Jack laughed. He looked to Bunny, a spark of mischief in his eyes, his smile dimpling his right cheek. 'So, you wanna join my scouting party?'

'Yeah, I'll brave the cold with you,' Bunny replied, grinning back.

'Don't worry, I'll keep you warm.'

'The pair of you stick to scouting,' North chastised, pointing at the pair of them sternly. 'Enjoying warm comes later.'

'Yeah, yeah North, we know,' Jack said. 'Duty calls.'

'Take care, boys,' North replied, serious. 'I'll see you both later.'

'Or in the next life,' Jack finished with a smile, his dimple showing high on his cheek. 'C'mon North, we'll be fine.'

 

'You're late,' Kozmotis scolded when he saw North approach. 'You're also meant to scout with Jack.'

'Bunny's fur provides better protection against chill,' North explained with a shrug. 'It will make it easier to stay alert with Jack.'

'If they don't distract each other,' Kozmotis said with a frown.

'They are Guardians,' North replied. 'They'll be fine.'

'Change of plans?' Pitch asked, coming up behind them before Kozmotis could say anything else. The Guardians turned as he approached, and he smiled. 'It’s a wonder you’re the leader at all, considering how much anyone listens to you. You thought you could keep those men away from each other longer than they needed to be?'

'If everyone is prepared,' Kozmotis said, ignoring Pitch's taunting. 'Then we should head around. Keep your eyes open, and signal if there is any danger.'

'Of course,' Pitch replied, pivoting on his foot and wandering towards the Southern path that stretched in a long, winding loop around the camp, far away from the light of the campfires and the murmurs of the numerous conversations drifting through the night.

'You should go with him,' North suggested. Kozmotis looked up at him, perplexed. North nodded after Pitch, keeping his voice low.

Kozmotis shook his head. 'He wishes to be alone.'

'He is alone often enough when you are not here,' North reasoned. 'And there are still things you need to speak of.'

'He does not wish to hear them,' Kozmotis sighed. He knew the strain in his relationship with his brother was his fault, knew the blame Pitch laid upon him was justified. Still, it did not make it easier when Kozmotis tried to convey his regret, through heated arguments that descended into blood or through soft whispers late at night from their opposite beds.

'I think he does, he is just too stubborn to admit it,' North replied, a twinkle in his eye as he smiled. 'Must be family thing.'

Kozmotis frowned, unimpressed before his expression softened. 'I cannot leave you by yourself.'

North patted Rudolph's flank, and the giant lunar reindeer shook his great head and snorted, his breath forming ephemeral clouds in front of his face. 'I won't be alone. Rudolf is good choice for second pair of eyes.'

'Are you sure?' Kozmotis hesitated. North nodded, pointing after Pitch.

'Go on,' he insisted. 'I will see you both for drinks and celebrations later.'

Kozmotis nodded, a small smile gracing his lips before he turned and jogged after Pitch, catching up to him as North took to the East path with Rudolph by his side.

 

‘Fuck, it's freezing,' Bunny grumbled, pushing his hands up the sleeves of his thick green coat and rubbing his arms, his claws raking through his fur as he tried to keep himself warm. Beside him, Jack chuckled and slid closer to him, looping his arm around Bunny's slim waist. He rested his head on his lover's shoulder, the fur lining the hem of his coat hood blending seamlessly with the exposed fur on Bunny.

The long dark blue coat had been a gift on their first anniversary, the material spun from lunar thread, creating a soft, lightweight fabric that allowed Jack the freedom of movement he needed in battle while making it stronger than armour, giving him an extra layer of defence. Bunny had used his own fur around the hood and the cuffs, even though Jack had no need for the additional warmth.

Jack reached up and began to unbuckle it, passing his staff between his hands as he shrugged it off of his shoulders. Throwing it around Bunny’s shoulders, he reached up and kissed Bunny nose.

'I told you I'd keep you warm,' he said, twirling his staff in his free hand as he wandered further ahead down the path. The rough cut diamond in the shape of a snowflake at the tip shone brightly, the same white-blue glow spreading through the grain of the wood, giving it a halo of light that illuminated their path.

'I was kinda hoping you'd warm me up another way,' Bunny huffed. ‘And take your coat back, ya gumby.’

‘I think you need it more than I do,’ Jack said, unfazed by the cold in nothing except dark buckskin trousers and a soft white shirt that gaped open at the neck, revealing sharp angled collarbones and pale creamy skin that sparkled with a dusting of frost, ice cold unless someone warmed his skin with their touch. Bunny was more than happy to volunteer any chance he could, revelling in the glowing pink blush that spread across Jack’s cheeks and down his long neck, his tongue and lips losing any familiarity with language if it wasn’t Bunny’s name forming on them.

‘Bunny? Bunny!’ Jack said, poking at Bunny’s cheek with his staff, snapping him out of his errant thoughts. Jack grinned. ‘Were you thinking improper thoughts?’

'Shut up, Frostbite,' he grumbled, looking away.

‘I think you were.’

‘Let’s just get this over and done with so we can head on home to sleep. And take your bloody coat,’ he ordered, shucking it from his shoulders and holding it out for Jack to take.

‘It’s not as if I need it,’ Jack said even as he reached out for it and swung it over his own shoulders. He didn’t buckle it up, letting it hang like a cape trailing behind him as he fell into step beside Bunny. In the distance, giant glaciers of ice decorated the horizon, the chill rolling across the plane towards them. They rivalled the mountains to the north in size, the combined powers of the Artican mages a force to be reckoned with.

They walked in silence for a while, the night quiet and peaceful despite the wreckage left by the previous battle.

'Seems quiet tonight,' Jack murmured. 'Less work for us.'

'Yeah, well, don't celebrate ye- son of a- fuck!' Bunny yelped, hopping on one foot in pain, clutching the other in his hands. Jack's staff flared with cold light, brightening the path in front of them and revealing a chunk of black material from a pirate ship.

They shared a look, and Jack raised his staff defensively. Bunny pulled his from his back, the warm Pookan light joining Jack's as they crept along the dark path. Their combined light fell on the mangled wreck of a downed space pirate vessel.

'I'll signal the others,' Bunny whispered. Jack shook his head.

'We don't know if it's deserted, and we'd lose the advantage if it isn't.'

Bunny hesitated, before he nodded. 'Let me go first.'

Jack rolled his eyes at Bunny’s protectiveness, but relented, allowing him to walk ahead.

There was no movement from within the wreck, the blackened hull warped and twisted in the crash, stripped of its shell. The torn flags flapped weakly in the breeze, chains rattling against each other where they hung. A loose metal grate swung on its hinges, creaking and groaning in the silence.

‘Jack, back up and get ice over your skin, now,' Bunny ordered. He rooted around in his pocket for the emergency chocolate he kept stashed there.

'Are you kidding me? I'm not hanging back while you go in there alone.'

'I'll wait. Hurry up.'

Jack hesitated, before he stepped back, gripping his staff in both hands and holding it in front of him as he began to chant low under his breath. Ice crept over his skin, starting from his fingertips and trailing up his hands, and over his wrists, turning them impossibly white with oil slicks of shimmering blue across the angular facets, turning his skin into armour harder than steel.

 

The soft silvery blue light from his staff grew brighter, illuminating the grinning face of a Dream Pirate over his shoulder.

 

Green fireworks exploded above camp, luminous against the dense smoke rising from the remnants of funeral pyres. Pitch grabbed his brother’s hand and pulled him into the shadows, travelling through them in a blink of an eye. North jumped onto Rudolph's back and leapt into the air, covering great distances in moments.

Sandy and Tooth took to the air as well, speeding towards Bunny and Jack as war horns blasted around camp, rousing the men and women from their tents to danger.

Kozmotis and Pitch arrived first, drawing their weapons and falling on the Fearlings and Dream Pirates surrounding the six armed Bunny, hacking away at them with concentrated beams of scorching light from the golden egg atop his golden staff, incinerating the Nightmare Men and Fearlings where they stood into formless slicks of boiling darkness. Kozmotis's sword split them in half, the dark blade rippled with gold and silver, the pale metal flaring with light through the black, burning the creatures where it touched them. Pitch's arrows, made from pure shadow, pierced through the hearts of the Dream Pirates at point blank range.

Tooth and Sandy followed close behind with sabres and whips drawn, Tooth’s vast wings drawing up swirling gusts of wind that blew the pirates off their feet as she descended into the fray. North arrived last, Rudolf charging the dark creatures, throwing them up into the air with a toss of his great antlers. North drew his swords, swinging them down to meet the blades of the pirates who were brave enough to swarm around Rudolf’s thundering hooves, trampling over dirt and darkness alike as they stormed down the path.

The pirate captain snarled orders at his crew throughout the melee, the battered wreck clanking to life as the pirates salvaged what they could, stoking the fires in the engines and trying to hold off the Guardians. Tooth duelled two high in the crow’s nest, their swords ringing against each other as Sandy’s whips cracked the air, pulling Fearlings from the ropes as they tried to sneak on Tooth, snapping their necks with a flick of his wrist as the sand wrapped tight around their throats. Their bodies rained down around the Guardians as the ship began to rise, coughing smoke and embers.

'Don't let them get away!' Kozmotis ordered over the roar of the engines.

'Really?' Pitch snarled, blocking the captain's rapier with his own and kicking him in the gut, twisting out of reach to put distance between them. 'I thought we'd throw them a farewell party.’

He sheathed his sword and hefted his bow, drew a shadow arrow back and sent it at the captain; it missed by a hairbreadth. He leapt at Pitch as he notched another arrow, knocking into him and throwing him off the ship as it tilted side to side like a broken see saw. The pirates clamoured to the broken helm, towards the star harpoons, battered and knocked off their holdings, still operational with what little ammunition they had left. They loaded them, stacking them on the backs of their more unfortunate comrades – dead or alive – and took aim at the Guardians below them.

'Get down!'

The Guardians scattered as giant harpoons rained down on them, thumping into the ground as the pirates picked up speed towards the safety of space. Tooth and Sandy lunged into the air after them, zigzagging to avoid the monstrous weapons and the thick tail of smoke and flames trailing behind the half-destroyed ship. They couldn't get close enough, and the ship roared in one final burst of life as it shot into the higher atmosphere, and the survivors hung off the sides, laughing and crowing as they escaped to the stars.

'They won't get far,' Kozmotis hissed as he pulled himself to his feet, dusting himself off and sheathing his sword. 'Not in that wreck. We'll need to send out a search for them, no pirate escapes while we live.'

He pushed his hair back from his face, turning to glare at Pitch. 'I thought you said you'd gotten them all?'

‘I thought you said we should expect stragglers?’ Pitch snapped back, wiping blood from his face with his sleeve and stalked to the closest Fearling lying twitching on the ground. The others turned away, giving him privacy to absorb it. Tooth dropped to the ground, her swords hanging low by her side. She looked around, brow furrowed.

'Where's Jack?'

Pitch stopped, straightening and the others tensed, alert. Dread uncoiled in their stomachs, an ominous threat that something was wrong.

'Jack? Bunny?' North called out, searching for them.

'Bunny? Jack? Bunn- oh,' Tooth trailed off as she wandered a short distance away from the others, to a clutter of unusable scraps from the ship where Bunny crouched low, his arms wrapped around-

'Oh no! Jack! No!' Tooth cried, her swords clattering to the ground as she rushed over to them. The Guardians ran up behind her, stopping short when they saw Jack.

His shirt was soaked red, torn down the centre of his torso from the shadow blade that had skewered him, pouring blood down his abdomen, spreading down his thighs and turning his trousers black. Darkness spider webbed across his skin from the wound, shadows blistering under his pale white skin into ugly welts. His coat lay spread out around him, dark and wet, the fur slick and sticky. Two halves of his staff lay broken and useless on the ground a short distance away, the light ebbing.

Bunny pressed a ripped swathe of cloth from his own robe tight against the wound, wrapping it secure with their belts as Jack struggled for breath, rasped and wheezing. Blood painted his lips and trickled down his chin, his carotid arteries pulsed black under his skin, corrupted by the shadow, his body trying to fight it.

He gripped Bunny’s fur with bloodied hands, trying to speak, his lips forming silent half words, blood frothing at the corners.

‘Don’t try to speak, Jack,’ Bunny ordered, his voice thick with tears, shaking as bad as his hands as he tried to stem the flow from his chest. ‘You can tell me later. Just, don’t try to speak.’

Then Pitch was beside him, talking to him but Bunny couldn't hear the words, his long ears straining to keep track of Jack's heartbeat as it slowed, started to skip beats. Behind them, muffled shouting rose up from the direction of the camp, the stampede of armoured feet rushing towards them. Bunny leaned in closer to Jack, trying to focus on his heartbeat.

'Let me take him through the shadows,' Pitch demanded. 'I can get him back to camp.'

'Tooth! Fly back and inform the healers to expect another arrival, now!’ Koz ordered, dropping down beside his brother. Tooth nodded, taking wing and speeding off, faster than she had ever flown.

‘Bunny, we need to get Jack back quickly,’ Koz said. ‘Pitch can get him there faster than any of us.’

Bunny nodded, bracing himself as he wrapped his arms around Jack to push him into Pitch’s arms. Jack struggled, tears trailing his cheeks as he shook his head, clutching Bunny desperately.

'Don’t,’ he gasped, choked and hoarse, his next breath cut short by a weak cough. ‘Don’t… m’ve…’

'Jack, we have to get you back!'

'Jack, please let me save you!' Pitch begged.

Jack's smile was garish with glazed eyes behind thick white lashes, black blood filling his mouth and choking his words. ‘“Hero”...’

Pitch stared at Jack, unable to speak, unable to share the joke when his friend lay dying.

Bunny shifted Jack in his arms, pulling him closer as he stood up, Jack’s pained, weakening protests lost against his fur. 'Pitch, take us both!'

Pitch’s gaze shot up to him, shocked by his demand as he stood, shaking his head. 'I've never taken two people before!'

'Do it now!'

Pitch clenched his fists, gritting his teeth as he knuckled his forehead. 'I don't know if I can! I might lose you both!'

'You're losing one of us now!'

'Next...'

'What?' Bunny said, looking down at Jack. His bright blue eyes were glazed through his thick white lashes. He inhaled as deep as he could, a pained expression contorting his soft features as he forced the words past his lips.

'Next… life,' he gasped, pained.

Bunny squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. ‘No. No, Jack. Not next life. Not yet. You don’t get to die yet.’

'Bunny, give him to me,' Pitch demanded, holding out his arms. 'I'll come straight back for you!'

Jack clung tighter to Bunny, shaking his head. Even groggy and weak, his fingers dug into the thick fur on Bunny's chest, patterning his soft white pelt with streaks of dirt and blood.

'Jack! _Please_!' Pitch begged, defeated. Kozmotis reached out and squeezed his brother's shoulder. Bunny shook his head, swallowing around the lump in his throat as tears welled in his eyes, staring down at Jack.

'Jack...'

'N’x...nn...'

'I'll be here. I'll be right here waiting.'

 

The Guardians said no more, holding each other as Jack closed his eyes, going limp in Bunny’s arms.

 

The funeral was held two days later, attended by the Guardians alone. Dressed in white, with his mended staff clasped in his hands, bells rang and candles flickered as the Guardians gathered around him. His symbol as a Guardian and an Artican mage - a snowflake – was painted in a hexagon surrounding his body. Standing in front of the icy coffin, Toothiana was the first to reach out her hands to the men either side of her.

Sandy's lip quivered as he tried not to cry, his glow dimmed as he took her hand, scrubbing his face with his free hand. North, to Tooth's other side, did not have the same restraint. His breaths were ragged, hitching as he cried; an unofficial father figure to Jack out of all the Guardians, his tears were those of a parent burying a child. Kozmotis took his hand, his other reaching for his brother, who stood stoically by his side, staring at the coffin as if he wasn't really seeing it.

'Pitch,' Kozmotis whispered gently, his fingertips brushing Pitch's.

Pitch blinked, coming out of a trance, and looked to his brother, then down to his open hand. He stared at it, his eyes empty, and Kozmotis flexed his fingers, a gentle encouragement. Pitch finally reached out and took his hand, lacing their fingers together and Kozmotis squeezed his hand comfortingly.

Pitch turned to Bunny, who stood closest to Jack's head, gazing at his lover. He didn't shed the tears welling in his eyes, stopped the gut wrenching sobs that bubbled up his throat and made his body shake. He clenched and relaxed his fists by his sides, holding onto his grief.

Pitch reached out his free hand to Bunny, and when the Pooka met his stare, Pitch flinched away from his anger.

He was supposed to have gotten them all.

Pitch swallowed, keeping his hand outstretched. Still Bunny hesitated, unwilling to let go. Gazing at Jack's peaceful expression through the faceted ice one last time, he reluctantly took Pitch's hand.

The bells rang louder, filling the air. The lights burned their eyes, dancing through the ice curving over Jack and turning it a white-gold. It glowed brighter, encompassing Jack until it seemed to emanate from him, illuminating the Guardians and forcing them to close their eyes, and it burned brighter still.

They could still see the light behind their eyelids, enveloping them in a warm embrace, surrounding them in light until it slowly began to ebb. Fraction by fraction, the light softened, the burning brightness genrled into the dim light of the candles hanging in the air. The Guardians opened their eyes, blinking away the flashing white dots that blotted their vision, their tears tracking down their faces as they looked back at where their friend had lay, now nothing more but empty space, the snowflake and hexagon still painted on the floor. Dancing particles of blue white embers skittered along the air, spiralling up into the clear, starry night. The two moons that accompanied Extremis hung in the sky, watching over the procession silently. The Guardians watched the scattering lights, images of snowflakes and dustings of frost coming to mind as their gaze followed them into the air until they could see no more.

Bunny pulled his hand from Pitch's, but did not move from where he stood. The others remained still and quiet for the longest time, until Kozmotis released Pitch's and North's hands and cleared his throat.

‘May we meet again, Jack Frost, in the next life. May our time apart be short lived.'

'Till next time, Jack,' Tooth echoed.

One by one, they turned and headed back to the basecamp on the planet, where the remains of their army were dutifully waiting for them. Tooth wrapped her arm around North, leaning in close to him, Sandy tailing them on his sand cloud. Kozmotis paused as he turned to follow them, reaching out to Pitch. The Guardian of Fear hesitated, staring at Bunny’s back as if he wanted to say something.

Instead he took his brother’s hand and walked back with him in silence. Bunny remained for some time longer, staring into empty space, until the sky blushed pink with the rising sun, the first rays of light peeking over the horizon and catching Bunny's eyes.

He squinted against the light, raising his eyes to meet the beginning of a new day. He swallowed, wiping his eyes with the heels of his palms.

'I'll be right here waiting.'

 

So he waited.

They all waited.

 

Ten years.

 

Twenty years.

 

Fifty years.

 

Then Bunny waited alone, as his friends died and returned, over and over. He became reacquainted with North more times than he could count, and Tooth returned as every kind of aquiline warrior each turn of the cycle.

His Pookan brethren comforted him as well as they could, the loss of a mate rippling across the big family as though the pain was their own. It helped, as much as he expected it to help, when each generation came and went and Jack still did not return to him.

He still waited, just as he promised: waited for the flash of white and blue, the drop in temperature and the tell tale chuckle before Jack barrelled into him. He waited for the snowball to the face, the throwaway comment of 'Waiting for someone?' or 'Need warming up?' like it wasn't a big deal, because of _course_ Jack wouldn't think it was a big deal, dying and reincarnating.

He was still waiting when Kozmotis died, and the Nightmare King escaped, and everything went to hell.

* * *

**_Earth, Easter 2012_**

Bunny started awake, groggy and confused. He looked around the Warren, trying to figure out what had awakened him. He mentally kicked himself for falling asleep in the first place; he still had so much work to do in the last few days till Easter, the Warren in full production mode with the stone sentinels guarding the trails and patrolling along the colour river and the egg fields. Googies ran around en masse, diving into the river and rolling down vines to get patterns imprinted on them. The ones that were afraid of the river hung around close to him, to be painted individually by hand. He had fallen asleep with one in his hand, it's tiny feet peddling the air in confusion. He set it down, and it scurried away. He realised too late it was only half painted and sighed a curse, loping after it.

'C'mere ya li'l - there ya go,' he muttered, scooping it up in one hand as it tried to run in curving serpentine lines out of his reach. He sat down on his haunches and pulled a paintbrush from his bandolier, scratched his head as he tried to remember what he had wanted to paint on the damn thing to begin with.

He looked around the Warren, life and colour and light blooming in every corner, on every wall, reaching up to the skies above him-

\- and growled, watching the auroras dance across the Warrens sky.

He sighed, packed away his paintbrush and stuffed the egg into his bandolier before he headed to the North Pole tunnel. He called orders over his shoulder, though he didn't expect to be gone from his Warren for long.

*

'Why are you sending out the auroras, Nicholas?' Kozmotis asked, striding into the workshop. He looked proud and regal even without his armour, clad in a simple, long, military style jacket and straight leg trousers, his boots polished to a shine. Tooth and Sandy followed him, the latter accosting a nearby yeti holding a tray full of eggnog in his hands.

Bunny loped in at the tail end of the group, skirting around them and headed straight for the fireplace to warm himself. He hunkered down in front of the roaring flames, pulling the half painted egg and a paintbrush from his bandolier again. He could still pay attention to the conversation while he tried to figure out what he had wanted the pattern to be.

'You think I send out auroras for cookie shortage?' North asked, shaking his head. 'I would not call you all here unless it was serious.'

He turned to face them, folding his arms across his large stomach. 'Pitch was here.'

'Pitch?' Tooth repeated, brows knitting together. Even Bunny looked up at that, frowning.

'Why?' Tooth turned to Kozmotis for answers, who could only offer her a half shrug as explanation.

'I don't know,’ North said, stroking his beard. ‘The lights flickered on the globe, and then poof - a shadow!’

'And when did Pitch show up?' Kozmotis asked.

'Well, he didn't, _exactly_ , show his face,' North explained, sheepish. Bunny looked up from the half painted egg, deadpan. North caught his look of derision and frowned, holding his hands up in peace.

'It was definitely Pitch, though.'

The others remained unconvinced. Tooth turned to Kozmotis. 'Kozmotis?'

Kozmotis shrugged. 'I have not seen my brother in some years. He prefers his own company.'

‘Can you contact him in some way?’

Kozmotis shook his head. ‘If he gave me the chance, I would be more than willing to seek him out. As it stands, I can only find him when he wishes to be found.’

Bunny huffed, packing away his egg and brush in annoyance, pulling four colour bombs from a separate pouch. He thumped his foot on the floorboards and a large, deep tunnel opened up next to him. The Guardians watched him with interest as he looked over the edge. It was plenty dark down there, perfect for what he was going to do.

He smiled, extended his hand over the edge and let the four colour bombs drop into the shadows. The hole swallowed them up, closing with another tap of his foot. He stepped back, folded his arms and waited, cocking his head to the side and twitching his ears.

A muffled explosion rumbled through the workshop, shaking it from the ground up. A surprised yelp followed, and Bunny snorted as the shadows shifted in the corners of the room, and Pitch stepped out of them with a scowl on his face and his black robes tye-dyed pastel blues and greens and pinks.

'Very mature, rabbit,' he snapped, dusting himself off, a cloud of chalk puffing up around him.

'Pitch, what is the meaning of this?' Kozmotis asked.

'Why are you wreaking havoc in my workshop?' North added. Pitch grinned.

'Oh, did you like that little show on the globe, North?' he drawled, winking. 'Got you all together, didn't I?'

'What's going on?' Tooth asked, her three mini fairies flitting around Pitch, squeaking with questions. He waved them off and they retreated, only to swoop in close again, still chittering. He glared at them before turning his attention back to the Guardians.

'Something is stirring in the dark. The shadows are talking,' he said, solemn.

'About what?'

'Whispers, riddles, rhymes.’ He shrugged. 'Nothing concrete, but they're excited. I don't like it when they're excited.'

'You called us three days before Easter because your roommates got hold of some caffeine?' Bunny snapped. Pitch glared at him.

'Do I need to remind you of the last time they got over excited?'

'The empty Warren does that just fine.'

Pitch flinched, his lips drawn thin into a grimace. He met Bunny's hard gaze, refusing to duck his eyes.

'Bunnymund, Pitch, that is enough,' Kozmitis scolded, knowing the anger that boiled beneath the surface of the two Guardians. Sandy floated around them, sand shapes dancing above his head.

'If darkness is happy, there is reason for it,' North said. 'We should investigate.'

'Investigate _what_?' Bunny demanded, throwing his arms up in exasperation. 'Whispers? Riddles? Maybe we can ask them nicely what they want and be finished with this by noon.'

'So you can get back to your over elaborate holiday prep?'

' _I_ give kids something worthwhile.'

'Oh, just _try_ living in a world without fear,' Pitch snarled. 'You won't have any kids left to paint eggs for.'

Before Bunny could answer, a shrill ringing called their attention to Sandy, who held an elf in his hand and looked unimpressed with them all. He dropped it to the floor and jabbed his finger up to the moon, which hung patiently in the sky, waiting for the Guardians to notice.

'Ah, Man in Moon, it’s been a long time!' North greeted jollily. He glanced over his shoulder to Sandy. 'Sandy, you should've said.'

Sandy scowled, shaking his fist at North's back.

'Manny, what news brings you here?'

A shaft of light illuminated the patterned floor bearing the calligraphic G, circled by seven distinct symbols representing the Guardians. The Guardians huddled around it as shadows formed in the circle at the centre of the mosaic tiles.

'Dream pirates?' Bunny snarled, seeing red at the sight of the silhouettes dancing around in the circle of moonlight, laughing before disappearing into formless swirling black shapes.

'They've not been seen in millennia,' Tooth said quietly. The last time they had came face to face with a ship of dream pirates had been when Jack had... When they had lost...

'Looks like they're about to,' Pitch replied as Manny showed their ship careening towards earth. He scratched the back of his neck, folded his arms. 'If they're not here already.'

'Does anyone have a readymade battle plan?' Tooth asked, cold. They had a score to settle with any and all Dream Pirates, no matter how much time had passed.

Before anyone could answer, the floor panels scraped against each other, and a large, glowing blue crystal rose from the floor, reflecting the moonlight, bright and otherworldly. The Guardians stared at it in shock, taken aback by its sudden activity.

'Oh, do you know what this means?' Tooth breathed.

'He’s choosing a new Guardian,' North whispered in disbelief. Bunny's ears drooped back, his gut twisting at the sight of the crystal: a new Guardian, because the old one hadn't returned. He slumped down onto his haunches, dropping his gaze to the floor as nausea rolled through him. He couldn't watch this.

'Who do you think it'll be?' Tooth asked.

'Perhaps the Leprechaun, or Lady Luck,' Kozmotis guessed, from Sandy's pictograms. 'We'll need plenty of that.'

He glanced to Bunny, curled up on himself, sympathetic. 'Are you alright, Bunnymund?'

'As long as it's not the Groundhog,' he bit out the joke. The damn blighter was scared of his own shadow; he wouldn't last two seconds against living darkness. 'Definitely not him.'

'There's plenty to choose from, though there hasn't been a Guardian chosen since the six of us were -'

'Seven,' Bunny snarled, looking out the corner of his eye at Pitch. 'There were seven of us chosen.'

'Oh, so sorry, Rabbit,' Pitch sneered automatically. He folded his arms across his chest, tapping his fingers against his arms in a broken rhythm. 'Hard to count that when I only see... Six.'

Bunny jumped up with a snarl, advancing on Pitch, who stepped back into a defensive stance, ready to brawl when Tooth screamed. They stopped in their tracks, their heads whipping towards the crystal and the holographic figure it depicted, focusing on the spirit’s face. They registered who stood before them in the blue light a moment later.

'Jack Frost,' North whispered.

One of Tooth's mini fairies fainted from where she hovered in the air. Bunny felt close to following her example. His breath left his lungs in a rush, a pained noise escaping his throat with it. His chest tightened, he thought he was having a heart attack it was so painful.

It wasn't possible.

He would've known. He would've felt something. He would've felt _Jack_.

Yet the figure depicted could only be the frost spirit they all knew and recognized within a heartbeat, the same cocky grin forming on his lips, eyes bright with mischief and fun.

Beside him, Pitch had paled to a sickly grey, his eyes so wide he could see the whites more than anything else. He had no sharp quip or scathing remark to make.

'He's back,' Tooth breathed, clasping her hands over her mouth.

‘Impossible,’ Kozmotis whispered.

Bunny shook his head, clutching his chest and curled up on himself, refusing to look at the image that was nothing more than a slap in the face.

'I take it back,' he said, his voice thick with unshed tears. 'I take it back, the groundhog is fine.'


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardians reunite. Kinda. There's some issues to work through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for not getting this chapter up sooner this week. This week has honest to god been a chore and I just want it over and done with.
> 
> Anyway, I did promise you a chapter this week, so I will deliver. I will, however, have to make the update schedule a fortnightly one. I cannot manage a weekly one. I will also make it so that I update on a Sunday evening between 8pm and 9pm (GMT). If the schedule changes again, I will let you guys know in advance.

Jack wandered along the telephone cable, icing over its neighbour.

He should've known better, been proven wrong enough times over the years that he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up. No matter how hard he tried, nothing ever changed: he was stagnant in a constantly changing world, with no reason as to why. The moon had no answers for him, as usual, and he was left to wander alone over the town of Burgess.

The ice path he had created for the kid still covered the road over half a dozen blocks, though the sofa had been recovered from under the statue.

He sighed, pulling his hood further over his face when a golden glow illuminated the sky. He looked up, recognising it with glee. He loved catching the sandman's dreamsand in action, chasing after it as it wove its way across the sky. A ribbon of the glowing sand streamlined over him, and he ran along the wires underneath it, jumping up and carding his fingers through the warm, glittering dream dust. Dolphins leapt from its confines, doing tricks around Jack.

He laughed, hopping off the cables and gliding along beside the unfurling tendrils, following this one and then that one.

There were hundreds upon hundreds to follow to their destination. He watched from his perch on windowsills as one young girl dreamt of being a professional footballer, another one a dancer. Dreams of space travel and pirates and epic battles unfolded above children’s heads over the course of the night, and Jack jumped between houses as fast as he could, racing and playing with the sand, trying to guess where it would go next.

He stopped outside an apartment complex as the sand slipped in through the window into the room of a young girl who evidently loved the colour pink. Jack did a double take, recognising her as one of the girls from the snowball fight today as a unicorn pranced around her head.

He chuckled, leaning against the window frame. He reached out and threaded his fingers through the sand stream, comforted for a while. Even if it wasn't actual companionship, it was still something more than what he usually had.

He looked back to the dream and lifted his head from where it rested against the frame, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. There was something wrong: the girl - Cupcake - started to twist and turn in her sleep, her face contorted into a grimace. He looked up at the golden dream unicorn, only to jump in shock that it was no longer there. Instead, the sand darkened till it was a glittering black mass, and a warped, writhing creature leapt up where the unicorn had been.

It looked like a horse, but instead of a soft flowing mane it had jagged barbs lining its spine, tusks jutting from the corners of its mouth. It brayed, shaking its large head and stomping its hooves as it circled Cupcake, nostrils flaring.

'Hey!' Jack struck the window, frosting it over. The creature looked up, gold eyes blazing. It stomped the ground, snorted. It looked ready to--

'Uh oh.'

Jack leapt into the air as it barrelled through the window after him, chasing him up into the clouds. Its calls were answered, and Jack looked over his shoulder to see a herd of them in pursuit.

'Oh come on,' he groaned, diving low to the ground and barrel rolling around a corner. A nightmare leapt over the edge of the building to his left, drawing up beside him. It snapped at his hood, and he dodged down an alleyway, swinging up onto the roof.

He skidded to a halt as he came face to face with three more. They advanced on him, three more behind him. He raised his staff, backing up as they closed in on him. He glanced behind him, seeing an opening and he took off running to the gap.

Jumping up a series of chimneys like steps, he jumped off the building and straight onto the back of another nightmare.

It shrieked, flying off at a gallop into the sky. Jack automatically tensed his legs around its sides, grabbing at the barbs to steady himself as he was thrown around on its back. It was terrifying: he had never ridden a horse before, and he couldn't find the rhythm in the wild rocking from her long strides. He tipped to the side, the view from her back vertigo-inducing when he had no control over his flight path.

The herd followed close behind her, calling between each other in brays and snorts. They followed her up over the clouds, the full moon watching them from where it hung bright and clear in the night sky.

Jack looked around, tried to find a way to escape. The only way seemed down.

He checked over his shoulder, the nightmare jarring and jerking him to and fro, making his head pound and his stomach flip flop. The nightmares watched him with unblinking eyes, diving and swooping over each other as they flew.

He looked down one last time, before he relaxed his grip, released his ride's spines and toppled over the side, nose diving to earth as fast as he could. The nightmares instantly followed, shooting after him as he dived into the forests, weaving around the trees and dropping into ravines carved into the earth by deep rivers, flying between the narrow dirt walls as he tried to avoid them.

He got to the end of the ravine, the river flowing out into open ground and he stopped, dropping to the ground and strained his ears for any noise. The forest was quiet, but not silent; tree boughs creaked in the wind, the river babbled over rocks beside him. The undergrowth was alive with nocturnal life, unfazed by Jack's presence.

He looked behind him, back along the ravine. Nothing had followed him.

He turned around, and stared into the eyes of a nightmare inches from his face.

The nocturnal life looked up in curiosity as the frost spirit ran past them screaming, a nightmare on his heels.

A hedgehog twitched its nose, and waddled away.

'Will you leave me alone, you demonic pony? Go frolic in a field or something!' Jack screamed, batting at the horse’s nose with the butt of his staff as he ran. It snorted, unhappy, snapping at his heels like an oversized dog with anger issues.

He whapped it with his staff again, and it dodged the blow, it's teeth snapping around the wood and skidding to a halt. Jack was yanked back, his hands still gripping his staff.

He dug his heels into the dirt, pulling on it. The nightmare held on, pulling on it right back in an impromptu tug-o-war.

'Let go!' Jack ground out, holding onto the crook till his knuckles turned white. The nightmare growled, tensing as it prepared to leap.

'Don't you d-'

The nightmare jumped up, pulling Jack along with it. He stumbled in long, loping strides as he was half pulled off the ground, the nightmare struggling to balance itself and gain altitude with the unequal weight of his staff and him clinging onto it. It strayed to the left, trying to compensate and ended up tilting too far the other way.

'Ow- ow- ow- learn to fucking fly straight!' he yelled as he crashed into another tree, the branches slapping him in the face and dragging at his scalp, his legs kicking uselessly in mid-air. The nightmare snorted, testy, breaking through the canopy in shaky, stumbling gallops.

Jack dangled from the crook of his staff precariously, treading air: if he fell, he wouldn't be able to fly without his staff, and the nightmare wasn't going to let go any time soon. He grumbled wordlessly, kicked his legs up to try and slip them over the nightmares back. He was too far away, his feet glancing over its gritty, glittering black flank.

He looked down, judging the distance he would drop and came to the conclusion he would make a mess - an invisible mess, but a mess nonetheless - when he landed. He whined, a wordless keen from the back of his throat.

_Why me?_ he considered asking the moon as his head fell back and the satellite filled his vision, but the chances of that question getting answered were as good as his previous attempts. He kicked his legs up again, hooking his ankles around the wood.

The nightmare banked to the left with the change, and the world tipped up to meet Jack. He yelped, clinging to it as he prepared his own eulogy in his head, when a second nightmare drew up beside the first, just below where Jack hung.

It brayed, tossing its head back. He tilted his head back, staring at it upside down in confusion as he was jerked and jolted by the first nightmare trying to right itself. He felt ill, unable to think straight. The nightmare shook its head again, persistent. He cocked an eyebrow, finally understanding it.

'Y'want...me... climb... Your back?' he asked, groaning as his belly flip flopped on itself. The nightmare bobbed its head, affirmative.

Jack grimaced, looking between the two nightmares. The first glared at him out the corner of its eye, demanding that he get the hell off it. He made an unsure noise at the back of his throat, and made a decision after another violent jostle.

He reached out, the nightmare flying closer till he wrapped one hand around one of its spikes. Bracing himself, he released his other hand from his staff and dropped onto the nightmare's back. He slipped down the side, and panicked, making a mad grab for his staff but the nightmare slowed, taking him too far away to reach. It came to a stop above the clouds and turned its head, nudging him up onto its back. He scrambled up, shaken, and leaned forward, resting his cheek against its neck.

The nightmare grunted, stamped its hooves before it took off again after its herd. Jack only just managed to hold on, squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself not to throw up.

The ride was just as rocky as his first attempt, unable to mimic the jarring, rocking motion of the nightmare. He clung to its neck, mindful of the spines as they flew up higher into the clouds, the air becoming colder as their path turned northwards.

He must've fallen asleep at some point, because he felt himself waking up to the sun shining in the sky, the moon a pale imitation in comparison where it hung back, ever watchful. He blinked, squinting up at it before he looked around at the snowy landscape: up ahead, the workshop sat stacked up the side of the mountain, the village and outposts scattered across the neighbouring rock faces. The nightmare herd was heading straight for it.

'What the-?' he looked down at the nightmare, patted its neck to get its attention. 'Hey, what did you bring me here for?'

It huffed at the back of its throat before the herd dived. Jack grabbed hold of the spines, the wind whipping at his hair and hoodie and stealing his scream as they dropped into the narrow passes between the mountains, ducking under rock bridges and over tight bottlenecks in some of the paths. He opened his eyes, blinking the water from them as they careened towards the shadowed rock wall.

'Hey, heyheyhey- WOAH!' he panicked, throwing his arms over his head as he braced for impact. Instead of slamming into the rock, he felt a squeezing pressure on all sides, like he was being forced through a tube. He thought he opened eyes, but he couldn't be sure, seeing nothing except total darkness.

Then the nightmare landed on polished wooden floors, skidding to a halt and sending Jack tumbling from its back. He rolled, tucking his head under one arm in reflex, until he bumped to a halt, limbs spread eagled in all directions, staring up at the ceiling.

'Ow...' he groaned, rubbing his head as a shadow fell over him, and the Big Six stood over him, staring down at him.

'There he is! Jack Frost!' Santa Claus exclaimed, laughing.

 

'You gotta be kidding me...'

 

The General, Kozmotis, extended a hand to him. Jack accepted it, hesitant. The Guardians hand was warm around Jack's, and he didn't flinch at the temperature difference. In fact, he smiled, as if welcoming a brother home as he pulled Jack to his feet.

'Hello, Jack,' he greeted. 'I hope the nightmares weren't too much trouble?'

'No, being scared half to death and taken for a ride into the mountainside was at the top of my to-do list today,' he replied as he brushed himself off and looked around for his staff. The nightmare who had acquired it stood next to the Bogeyman, who was coaxing it out of its mouth. He spun it in his hand, studying the crook with a mix of confusion and amusement, before he extended it out towards Jack.

'Glad I could help,' he joked, his gaze dropping to the staff before it flicked back up to Jack. 'Decided to downgrade?'

Jack took the staff back without answering, unsure what the Bogeyman was inferring to. Frost spiralled up through the grain where black had been a moment ago, and he spun it in one hand experimentally, checking it for damage when he was suddenly wrapped up in feathers, the buzz of wings thrumming in his ears.

'Woah- I-' he stuttered as the Tooth Fairy hugged him, her nails digging into his hoodie and pressing against the skin underneath where she balled the material in her fists.

'It's so good to see you, Jack,' she said, her voice cracking with tears.

'Uh, okay...'

She pulled away, wiping her eyes and smiling. 'Oh gosh, sorry, I'm sorry. I promised myself I’d keep it together.'

'It's okay,' he replied, shuffling his staff between his hands, restless and awkward. 'I - do you want a tissue...'

He trailed off as a giant rabbit approached him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. The other Guardians fell silent, serious as the rabbit circled Jack, studying him. Jack followed his movement, twisting his body round so he didn't lose sight of him. He kept his staff close to his body, hunching his shoulders to keep his neck out of sight, an automatic defence he had relied on over the years before the rabbit stopped in front of him, bright green eyes boring into his wide blue ones, searching for something.

Jack swallowed, heart thumping against his ribcage, canon fire in his ears. He felt his cheeks burn cold under the intensity of the Guardian's stare, his hands wringing the neck of his staff.

Then the Easter Bunny raised one hand, reaching up to touch Jack's cheek, or maybe brush his hair back, and Jack recoiled. The Guardian pulled back, and Jack felt a strange surge of guilt seeing the hurt in his eyes before he turned away.

'Can someone tell me why I'm here?' Jack asked, his voice barely above a whisper. His canon fire heart roared in his ears, his skin prickling as he watched the furred Guardian retreat.

'If it's-' he cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the strain. 'If it's about the dream sand, I'm sorry? I mean, I don't think I've done anything that would get you six together... Wait, am I on the naughty list or something?'

'If you were, you'd probably hold the record,' the Bogeyman replied with a sharp toothed grin. 'But no, for whatever reason the Man in the Moon chooses not to tell us, you have to start your Guardianship from scratch.'

'What?' Jack asked after a pause, his brain circuits cutting short at the information.

'I know, it confused us too,' Santa Claus replied, folding his arms across his chest. 'But you're here, we have Dream Pirates to deal with. Welcome back, Jack.'

Jack stared at him blankly, a long pause stretching out between them.

Then his face split into a grin, and he started to laugh. A look of confusion spread around them as they looked between themselves and back to Jack, who covered his eyes with one hand while he laughed, almost doubled over.

'Oh man, you got me,' he said. 'It's not quite April Fools but still, good attempt. I was actually freaking out with the Nightmares and the whole stare down he had going on-'

He waved his staff in the Easter Bunny's direction, who narrowed his eyes at him. Jack looked away, his laughter calming down.

'But no, no way am I falling for this,' he said, shaking his head.

The Guardians looked to each other in confusion, lost.

'Jack, this is no joke,' Santa Claus said. 'Dream pirates will be here in no time and when they do, they will target children!'

'Okay, but how am I supposed to help?' Jack asked, leaning on his staff. He shrugged. 'Kids don't see me. The moon ignores me. I don't even know what a Dream Pirate is to fight one.'

There was a pregnant pause. Jack watched them from under thick white lashes, nonchalant. He dug his staff into the hard wooden floor, swaying left and right as he rotated it for something to do while the Guardians stared at him.

_'What?'_ the Easter Bunny demanded.

Jack blinked, his attention turning to him. He quickly glanced around at low bannisters and crossbeams – anything that he could jump up onto and ascend quickly to avoid the potential attack impending; it was like an electric tingle in the air, an extra sense hard learned a long time ago.

'What do you mean you don't- you must remember- you gotta have...’ He trailed off, his gaze dropping to the floor before it returned to Jack, as if seeing him for the first time. 'Who are you?'

Jack straightened, narrowed his eyes, and scowled. He locked his arm out in front of him and tilted the crook of his staff towards the Guardian.

'Jack Frost,' he replied, hard and cold. The Easter Bunny shook his head, folded his arms across his chest.

'Nah, nah mate,' he said. He shook his head again, advanced on Jack. Jack held his ground, stepping forward to meet the Guardian. 'You look like him, I'll give you that. You sound like him, you even act a little like him... But you ain't Jack Frost.'

'Then take it up with the Man in the Moon, since he talks to _you_ ,' Jack snapped, their faces inches away from each other. His heart raced at the proximity, the size of the Guardian towering over him, the power of the muscles tensing under the thick fur. If he grabbed Jack, he could break Jack. His heart accelerated with fear at the thought.

'If you're looking for another Jack Frost, that's your problem. So get searching, cause I'm the only one that's been wandering around since the moon decided to pull me from that stupid lake,' he continued, narrowing his eyes. He had nothing to him except a name - a figure of speech or an expression, but still his name - and this asshole didn't want him to have even that.

'What do you mean you were pulled from a lake?' the Tooth Fairy asked, fluttering up to hover beside them. Jack looked at her out the corner of his eye, keeping his attention on the Guardian in front of him.

'A few centuries ago, about three? I was at the bottom of a lake, then I wasn't. All thanks to the _Man_ in the _Moon_. He said my name was Jack Frost and that's all. Three hundred years and all I have is a name. Which _apparently_ isn't even mine.'

He shot a glare at the Easter Bunny, who snarled, heckles raised. The Tooth Fairy thumped his shoulder with the back of her hand in warning, frowning at him. Her expression softened when she turned her attention back to Jack.

'What do you remember from before the lake?'

'Not a damn thing,' he said, never taking his eyes off the Easter Bunny.

'You just... Rose from the lake?'

'Yep.'

'Do you know who any of us are? What we do?'

Jack shrugged. 'You're the Guardians. The Big Six who protect kids, keep 'em believing in magic and dreams and faeries at the bottom of the garden for as long as possible. Santa Claus, Sandman, the Tooth Fairy and the Bogeyman, the General and... what? The Easter Kangaroo?'

'The Easter- you little-'

'Jack!' Santa said, before the Easter Bunny took Jack's head from his shoulder. 'Maybe you should walk with me, let me explain situation a bit better, da?'

Jack gritted his teeth, looked between Santa and the Easter Bunny, who was being held back by the Tooth Fairy. He relaxed and stepped back, walked around them at a wide berth towards Santa Claus. He raised an arm to rest around Jack's shoulders, but Jack shrugged him off, wary.

He accepted it, looking over his shoulder at the others. 'The rest of you look after Bunny, da? Calm him down.'

 

 

‘I am calm!' Bunny yelled as the doors closed behind them. He growled low in his throat, pulled his arm from Tooth's grasp. 'That's not Jack.'

'Well it certainly looks like him,' Pitch argued, rubbing his chin. 'How can he have no memories?'

'Because it's not him.'

'Bunny! Enough,' Tooth scolded. She pressed her fingertips to her temples, tapping them against her plumage. She sighed, ran her fingers through the feathers. 'There has got to be an explanation for this. None of us have ever come back without memories before.'

'Perhaps they are simply suppressed?' Kozmotis suggested. 'North had no recollection of his previous lives while he grew up as a Cossack.'

'He still recognised us on sight, though, just like that,' Tooth replied, snapping her fingers. 'Jack doesn't even seem to know our names. And then there's the issue about the lake? We've always been reincarnated, we've never... Risen.'

Sand danced above Sandy's head, offering suggestions. Kozmotis shook his head.

'If he died in the lake, the cycle would surely restart… wouldn’t it?' he said. Sandy shrugged.

Pitch dropped his hand from his face, edged closer to Tooth while Bunny sulked in the corner, and Koz and Sandy bantered ideas back and forth.

'Tooth, if he _did_ have a life before the lake, he'd have a tooth box, would he not?' he asked, keeping his voice low. Tooth frowned in thought.

'I suppose,' she replied. 'Maybe. You think his previous life would explain the change in the cycle?'

‘Perhaps. If nothing else, it would tell us more about him,’ Pitch said.

‘It wouldn’t explain why it took him so long to reincarnate, though,’ Tooth reminded him.

'In truth, Toothiana, we could all make an educated guess about that,' he said, rubbing the gold collar around his neck.

'Pitch?' Tooth asked, her voice heavy with worry. There must have been something in his expression that had caused her tone and he shook his head, forced himself to relax. He dropped his hand from the collar and cleared his throat, clasping his hands behind his back.

‘Pitch, the Arctican Mages weren’t the only ones who could wield snow and ice,’ Tooth said gently.

‘He must’ve had a life before he was in the lake,’ Pitch said. Tooth frowned, worry heavy in her bright eyes, but he didn’t let himself care. ‘If we can find out what his life was like, we can find out why he’s back as Jack Frost.'

'What if you're wrong?'

'Then I'd appreciate it if you didn't get everyone’s... Hopes up,' he replied, side eyeing Bunny, who was hunched over his egg and didn't seem to be paying attention to anything else. He looked back to Tooth. 'I'd also prefer to avoid the embarrassment if I am wrong. Keep this to yourself, for now.'

There was a pause, before Tooth nodded.

'Okay. I'll look for his tooth box. Will you accompany me?'

'Certainly, my dear,' he said. Tooth turned to the others, flying closer to them.

'Boys, there is something I need to check on in my palace,' she explained. 'I shall return as soon as I can.'

Kozmotis furrowed his brow in concern. 'It would be unwise to go by yourself anywhere. There are still the Dream Pirates to contend with.'

'I will go with her,' Pitch offered, stepping forward. 'My Nightmares will keep us safe, and if there is trouble, we will signal for aid.'

‘Very well,' Kozmotis said after a considering pause, nodding. 'Do not tarry longer than you need.'

'Don't worry, Koz,' Tooth assured him. 'We'll be back soon. Come on Pitch.'

She flew to the open window, her mini fairies following her into the air and Pitch smiled as he slid into the shadows and disappeared to Tooth palace.

*****

Santa led Jack through the workshop while he looked in wonder at the hustle and bustle around him. Toys flew overhead, dodging heavy wooden columns holding up the next floor above them and colourful banners hanging across the open centre of the room. Jack looked down over the balustrade, seeing yetis and elves on every level.

The air was warm and smelled like a carpenter’s shop, of wood dust and linseed oil mixed with spices and sugar from the kitchens. It was pleasant, a smell that someone might associate with home. He looked up; saw Santa had strode far ahead, talking with yetis and signing papers. Jack ran after him, smiling at the yetis that looked up from their work to stare at him as he passed by, pointing to him and murmuring between them.

'Yo, Santa Claus, wait up!' he called after him. 'I've wanted to see this place for years.'

'Oh? Why not consider visiting?' Santa asked, looking over his shoulder.

'The yetis are, uh, kind of intimidating,' Jack said, skirting around the largest of the yeti - a cream and mauve-brown one with heavy eyebrows.

'Bah, they are just teddy bears! Isn't that right, Phil?'

He slapped the yeti on the shoulder, and the yeti turned to look at him over his shoulder, did a double take when he saw Jack. He growled gibberish in his throat, pointing to Jack.

Jack stepped back, suddenly nervous as he looked between Santa and the yeti, wary of the giant creature.

'Jack has been chosen as Guardian,' he explained, resting a hand on Jack's shoulder. 'I must have talk with him in private, take over for a little while, da?'

Phil huffed and rolled his eyes, but nodded and Santa beckoned Jack to follow through the workshop. Jack glanced back once over his shoulder, and Phil caught his eye. He waved at Jack, and if Jack wasn’t wrong, he even smiled under his heavy fur.

Jack hurried after Santa, and it started to get quieter the further they walked, the wide, open space closing up in to long corridors lined with dark wood doors. One door was cracked open, and Jack paused to look inside, saw it was an art gallery of what had to be all the Santa Claus's long past. They all bore an eerie similarity to the big guy in front of him, but Jack studied one or two long enough that he saw enough differences to distinguish between them.

'Jack?'

Jack ducked his head out of the room, closed it with a click and caught up. 'Sorry.'

'No need to apologise,' he replied, smiling. 'Portrait gallery of all previous generations.'

'You have a big family, Santa Claus,' Jack said, impressed.

'No, just me if you don't count other Guardians,' he said, and smiled at Jack's confused expression. 'I will explain when we get to study. Also, kids call me Santa Claus. My name is Nicholas St. North, but everyone calls me North, except Koz, but he is stickler for formality.'

'St. Nick,' Jack said, as if he just realised a joke. 'Okay, North, but I still think there's been a mistake.'

'No mistake, unless you count how long it took us to find you again,' he said, opening the door at the end of the corridor and ushering Jack inside.

Jack stepped into a jumble of a room. No surface was left uncovered by diagrams and notes and models, pens, pencils, tools; the shelves dipped in the middle under the weight of the books stacked on them, a giant ice sculpture of an impossible railway track taking up the whole desk. Flying toys had made their way into the study, two toy aeroplanes having a dog fight around the rafters.

'Ach, myaschovich,' North grumbled, looking up at them. 'Faulty design: "fighter pilot" with a little too much emphasis on "fighter".'

'What do you do with them?' Jack asked, ducking as wood splinters rained on him. North reached up and waved them towards the open window, and they dived outside, looping up over the roof and out of sight.

'They usually wear themselves out, and I'll tinker with them to set them right,' North explained, closing the window. 'Now, where was book?'

He bustled about among the bookshelves, searching for the book he needed. Jack hopped up onto the chair next to the desk, perched on the arm and swung his staff over his shoulder. His thoughts strayed towards the Easter Bunny, the anger that he had had for Jack. Jack huffed, tapping the butt of his staff against the edge of the seat. Three hundred years with only a name, and even that could be taken from him.

'Ah! Here it is!' North said, pulling out an old, heavy tome bound in what looked like a smooth, shiny rock that was so dark it looked black. Jack lowered himself onto the chair properly, leaned his staff against the desk as he took the book from North, and grimaced under the weight of it. A red ribbon marked a page about half way through the book, tucked under the spine, the surrounding paper curving around the fabric like it hadn't been moved in years.

He dug his fingernails between the pages and flipped the book open across his lap carefully, flicking through the last couple of brittle, thin pages to get to the marked page. North leaned against the desk in front of him, folding his arms over his chest.

'If you need help with anything-'

'I can read,' Jack interjected with a scowl, looking up at North through his eyelashes. North raised his hands in truce, placating. Jack's eyes dropped back to the page, and his jaw just dropped.

On the book marked page, there was a portrait of seven people, bordered with gold curling vines. The picture was of the Guardians, sort of: he could only _just_ recognise North in the much younger man in the portrait, with a slimmer face, his eyes more grey than blue. The tooth fairy was darker skinned and bald, dressed in green and blue and devoid of feathers except for the wings protruding from her back. The General looked almost identical to the Bogeyman in the portrait, with dark red hair and a sharp, angular face. He had seen the family resemblance earlier, he hadn't realised they were twins. The Sandman, the Easter Bunny and the Bogeyman looked more or less the same, and next to the Sandman...was him.

At least, someone who looked incredibly similar to him - almost identical - like a mirror image. His eyes jumped to the small legend beneath the picture, reading and re reading just to be sure: Jack Frost, Sanderson Mansnoozie, Pitchiner and Kozmotis Black, Nicholas St. North, E. A. Bunnymund and Toothiana. _The Guardians of Light and Innocence, protectors of Childhood so the next generation may one day live in peace_. 312 BGA

His gaze jumped up to the picture again, convinced it was a trick of his mind, but no, there he was, dressed in a thick white coat over a dark blue military style suit, holding a beautifully crafted white staff that put his to shame. They were all dressed in armour in some way, or some sort of formal military wear, the General living up to his name in gold and white armour that shone even as a drawing on paper.

'He's the Jack Frost the Easter Bunny was talking about?'

'Jack, he's you,' North replied.

Jack stared at him, his mind refusing to process what he saw. The book was _ancient_ , he could tell, so how could his picture be in it? 312 BGA, what did that even mean?

'Are you sure this isn't an elaborate April Fools?' Jack whispered. North chuckled.

'No Jack, it's not,' he said. 'We have been around for a long, long time. We were all once citizens of the Golden Age throughout the universe, thousands of years ago.'

'Thousands...' Jack muttered, rubbing his forehead.

'Da. We were the greatest warriors the Constellations had against the darkness- Fearlings and Dream Pirates and Nightmare Men. We were granted immortality, in that we would not age beyond our prime and death would not claim us naturally. We could, however, fall in battle.'

'That, doesn't really give the impression of "universe's greatest warriors",' Jack muttered.

'Turn the pages,' North advised. Jack did so, flipped through a few pages of solid writing before he got to another portrait.

'Okay, what?' he gawped. There they were again, the year under them saying it was 204 BGA, and they hadn't aged. North actually looked younger! He flipped through another few pages, another portrait: 101 BGA, the next was 25 BGA. Then there was 72 GA, and Jack noticed his attire had changed, dressed in a long dark blue coat lined with fur, frost patterns spiralling up the arms and around the hem like the ones on his hoodie. He stood next to the Easter Bunny now, trying not to smile as he leaned back towards him.

He flicked forward again, but there were no more group portraits, instead it changed into chapters dedicated to each Guardian. Skimming through them, he saw North transform from the man in the first portrait into the one who stood in front of him. Toothiana and Kozmotis went through a similar transition, the latter departing from the darker colours he shared with his brother to the red-gold hair and warm whiskey eyes he had today.

He jumped back and forth between the portraits and the individual chapters, pausing at a few pages where the Guardians looked more noticeably different from their previous incarnations, but he couldn't pinpoint how, unsure whether he should mention it to North. North saw him staring though, and pointed to a portrait in his own chapter.

'Sometimes when we reincarnate, we are reborn in… different, shall we say, bodies,' he explained. 'More different than what we’re used to, anyway. We're not sure why it happens, it just happens. Tooth has gone through it more often than all of us combined: she doesn’t mind it, I myself find it to be feel very uncomfortable.'

'It happens to humans as well, sometimes,' Jack murmured off handedly, the differences he noticed making sense. He jumped to Bunnymund's and Pitch's chapters. 'How come these guys don't have so much written about them? They only have one portrait.'

'They never reincarnate. They've been here since the beginning,' North said. 'Bunny is the one who usually regroups us when we search him out.'

'Wow,' Jack muttered. 'My- I mean, the Jack Frost chapter is short as well.'

'Da,' North replied, and Jack looked up at the sadness in his voice.

'North?' Jack asked. North covered his eyes with one hand, rubbing at them. He cleared his throat, tried to keep his voice even.

'After... After the last portrait was drawn, there was a battle. We won but, we needed to scout the borders for stragglers and, uh, and...'

'You found some,' Jack finished, piecing the rest of the story together. 'That Jack Frost died.'

'You were killed, da, by a Dream Pirate,' North said. Jack frowned at the perpetual use of 'you' instead of 'he' or 'him' but he didn't comment, unwilling to upset North further. Even though the Guardian was a stranger to him, something made him hold his tongue. North cleared his throat again, looked back to Jack.

'We thought... We thought nothing would change: we usually reincarnate after a generation, sometimes two. Tooth once waited almost a hundred years before I saw her again.'

Jack noted he specified himself instead of all the Guardians, raising his eyebrows. Who'd've thought: the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus?

North sighed, shaking his head. 'You didn't. A hundred years, you didn't come back. A thousand, we thought we'd never see you again, and now Man in Moon - the last of the ruling class from the Golden Age – has chosen you again.'

'But _why_?' Jack asked, dragging a hand through his hair in frustration.

'You're a Guardian.'

'You say that, but... I don't understand _why_!' Jack said, his voice cracking. He leaned back in the chair, dragging both hands through his hair and clasping them behind his head, exhaling heavily to calm himself. 'What's so special about _me_?'

'Jack...'

Jack shook his head, blinking to hide his tears, looking up to the rafters. North frowned, stroking his beard.

'Jack, what's your centre?'

Jack looked to North, eyes narrowed in confusion. 'My wha- is this another Guardian thing?'

'Da,' North said sadly. 'Is very important. You don't know yours?'

Jack shook his head, swallowing. 'No. I don’t have… I don’t have anything. I don't... I can't tell you what you want to hear! I'm sorry. I'm sorry, all I know is that I was pulled from the lake by the moon; he told me that I was Jack Frost and that was it. I found my staff, and I found a town in the distance...'

His voice hitched, and he shook his head, pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He tried to stop the tears, but they wouldn't be stopped. He tried to stop the memories resurfacing, but they tore through his mind until he was back at the lake, confused and alone. 'I- I tried to, to talk to people, tried to make them n-notice me an-and they, th-they didn't. No one's _ever_ noticed me. I don't know why, I don't know, I'm sorry, I don't know why I look like that Jack or why I have his name but I, I can't be him. I can't, I'm not a Guardian, I'm not anybody! This is a mistake, it's a big mistake, I-'

North picked up the forgotten book from Jack's lap and crouched down in front of him. He reached out and laid his hands on Jack's shoulder, pulled away when Jack jumped at the contact, staring up at him with wide, tearful eyes before his face crumpled, and he hid it behind his hands as sobs racked his body. He fell forward in the chair, as if he would curl up on himself, but his forehead hit North's shoulder, and North took it as a sign of consent and wrapped him in a strong, solid hug, letting the boy cry into his shirt. He rubbed his back in small circles, though North's large hands covered most of his narrow back. He hiccupped around a sob, and North hugged him tighter, muttering softly in Russian.

They stayed like that for some time, until Jack's sobs subsided, and he pulled away from North, wiping his tears away messily. North kept hold of his shoulders, his thumbs stroking them soothingly.

'Sorry,' Jack said, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand.

'Is alright, Jack,' North assured. 'Is a lot to take in when you first hear it. We all had trouble dealing with it the first few times.'

'I bet none of you cried like a baby, though,' he sniffled. North smiled.

'No,' he admitted. ‘Tooth punched me on more than one occasion, though that is because I forgot myself and hugged her quite enthusiastically before reintroductions. Kozmotis and I have gotten drunk to cope with it several times. In fact, I even challenged Bunny to a death duel, once.'

'What happened?'

'He refused. I spent the next few hours chasing him with my swords, threatened to wear his fur as coat.'

Jack chuckled, and wiped his eyes again, leaned back in the chair.

'So, what now?'

'Now we find out why you don't have your memories,' North replied. 'They usually come back gradually, so they don't get confused with memories of present life, but you have gone three hundred years and not sought us out.'

'What does that mean?' Jack asked.

'I don't know,' North said, standing up and stroking his beard. 'There is something -'

A distant explosion grabbed his attention and he turned to the window. Jack looked around his bulk, wondered if it was the two fighter pilots coming back. North stalked to the window he had released them through and swung it open. Jack could see fireworks lighting up the sky in pink and black in quick succession.

'What's that?' Jack asked, just as Bunnymund barrelled into the study, Kozmotis and Sandman close behind.

'North! We got a problem,' Bunnymund said.

'Tooth...'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update: 14th February 2016


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble at Tooth Palace!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentines Day everyone! Thank you so much for reading and commenting, it's so awesome to see how excited people are reading this C:
> 
> I've added a couple of tags, which are: Kidnapping, Dream Pirates (should've added that before) and Pitch Black being an asshole, which surprises no one, but we still love him.
> 
> Enjoy, my freaky darlings xXx

Okay, Jack would admit that the ride to Tooth Palace had been pretty awesome. One look at the sleigh and Jack was ready to reconsider the Guardian offer: the reindeer were huge, and the lead one - Rudolf - didn't just have a shiny nose, he had shiny fur as well; a thick, silver white pelt that gleamed and glittered under the lights. They took off through loops and slides in the icy caves and out into the morning sky, and Jack was ecstatic to learn that Bunnymund clearly hated flying, something Jack had used to his advantage in delivering some payback for his earlier comments towards Jack.

‘Aww, didn’t think you cared,’ Jack drawled with a smirk, delighting in Bunnymund’s wide eyed panic when he looked over the edge of the sleigh, clinging to it for dear life. Jack hopped back into the sleigh, ignoring Bunnymund’s snarl, just in time for North to pull a snow globe from the depths of his pockets and throw it into the air in front of him. It opened in a swirling cyclone of colour and light, but Jack didn't have time to appreciate it before it sucked them all up through it and spat them back out above the mountain ranges of southern Asia.

'What the-?' Jack said, staring at the spiralling towers and open halls of the palace. Black smudges whizzed around the spires, darting among the pillars and under porticos and stoas, their flanks glittering in the sunlight.

'What is that?' North muttered. There was a sound of thunder, and cannon balls soared from the clouds, smashing into the walls of the palace. Roofs collapsed on themselves in a mosaic avalanche, pillars crumbled under the weight of themselves as more flew at the decorated palace.

'It's the Dream Pirates!' Kozmotis said, leaning out the side of the sleigh.

'Where's Tooth and Pitch?' Jack asked. North snapped the reins, urging the reindeer on faster. They dived into the colossal halls of Tooth's palace, weaving among the columns and plinths staggered through the wide, open space. Gold glinted off every edge, the pink and purple mosaic cracked and crumbling as canon fire smashed into the walls and archways, murals crumbling from the stone, pillars collapsing on themselves and crashing into neighbouring platforms, toppling them like dominoes.

They wove through the falling debris, dodging the avalanche of polished stone and broken metal, searching for the two Guardians.

'There they are!' Bunnymund said, pointing to Tooth and Pitch, who stood back to back fighting a dozen half-shadow, half flesh humanoids with unblinking white eyes and wide, gaping smiles. They fought with swords and daggers, the light bouncing off the black metal till the walls and columns lit up with dancing reflections. Pitch shot shadow arrows somehow without the aid of a bow or formed a giant scythe to cut through them while Tooth wielded dual swords, their blades curving in a thick arc into a gleaming point. More pirates hung from parapets and ledges, clamouring up the tooth columns onto the platforms that spiralled around them, firing shadow guns and harpoons at the Guardians below them.

'Take the reins!' North commanded, and Jack grabbed them without thinking as North jumped to his feet, yelling obscenities in Russian. The pirates turned and laughed in return, leaping up the walls closer to them and onto the sleigh.

'Oh shi-' Jack said, ducking his head as North swung his sword and cut the pirate in half. Sandy flew into the air in a fighter jet, showering sand bullets onto the pirates, the golden sand eating away at their darkness where they hit.  Bunnymund leapt onto the towers, jumping between them, throwing pirates off the dizzying heights to the ground below. Jack couldn't help but stare, following Bunnymund as he spun and twisted, boomerangs and exploding eggs flying from his hands. He was pure muscle under his thick grey fur, kicking and punching and elbowing any pirate that got too close as the palace shook under canon fire.

'Jack! Look out!' Kozmotis shouted, grabbing the reins in one hand and yanking them. Jack pulled with him, narrowly missing one of the tower tops. The three of them were thrown around the sleigh as the reindeer wrangled to correct their path, and they dropped down onto the plateau Tooth and Pitch stood on and skidded to a halt.

'Tooth!' North shouted, throwing two pirates off the sleigh and leaping from it. Kozmotis followed, a black broadsword rippled with silver and gold and haloed in white light gripped in his two hands. Jack glanced between them, before he scrambled out the sleigh as pirates clamoured from the surrounding plinths towards them.

They instantly surrounded him when he escaped the sleigh, and he skidded to a halt, raising his staff defensively. Their smiles were wide and gruesome, revealing two rows of sharp white teeth as they lunged at him, swords in one hand and daggers in the other. He swung his staff, sending jagged icicles and blasts of snow and frost at them, dodging the curved arc of their swords.

Bunnymund and Sandy covered them from above, ridding the higher levels of pirates. Kozmotis gravitated towards his brother, removing anything from his path that obstructed it. North and Tooth stayed close together as well while Jack kept moving, dodging and jumping around the Dream Pirates, hooking his staff around their necks and yanking them off their feet, throwing them off the lip of the dais they stood on.

One struck him on the back, making him stumble and it leapt onto him. He rolled with it, elbowing and kicking to try dislodging it. It held in tight, its dagger and sword lost in the scuffle. It sank its claws into his skin, garbling in his ear with clicks and hisses. Its putrid breath made him retch, its skin sticky like tar.

He rolled again, up onto his feet, his staff clattering to the ground. He bent under the weight of the creature on his back, tried to throw it off as it opened its mouth wide, teeth glistening with saliva --

There was a loud bang, and the pirate’s head whipped forward, its hungry expression transformed into a dazed stupor. It toppled off Jack like a limp doll, and Jack looked down in surprise at the blood stained boomerang lying beside it.

Bunnymund bounded over to him, a stern look on his face as he picked up his boomerang and Jack's staff, thrusting the latter at him. It struck him on the chest, forcing the air from his lungs in a short gasp. He clutched it tight, looking up at Bunnymund.

'Never drop your weapon,' he snarled. 'It'll only get you killed.'

He glanced over Jack's head as Jack stuttered out a thanks. He snarled, grabbed the front of his hoodie and pulled him behind him, throwing the boomerang he'd just retrieved at another pirate, the force of the blow knocking it back mid leap and bouncing the boomerang back to Bunnymund.

Uh… thanks?' Jack said. He was rewarded with a small smirk before Bunnymund carried on fighting. Jack pivoted, back to back with the furred Guardian, throwing his staff out and freezing the ground beneath the pirates feet, making them slip and skid right over the edge of the suspended platform.

More still came through one of the holes blown open in the mosaic walls, jumping and swinging down ropes onto the lower columns closer to the Guardians. They came with nets and more harpoons, their aim set for Sandy as they tried to shoot him out of the air while he wheeled and wove around their missiles, barrel rolling and looping up and over them, sending some of them into a deep sleep with his sand while others were struck down by his sand bullets. On the lower level, the six spirits grouped closer together, holding the pirates back.

'What's their deal?' Jack yelled over the clash of weapons. 'Why are they here?'

'They might tell you if you ask them nicely,' Bunnymund yelled back. Blood trickled through his fur where they had knicked him, the other Guardians baring similar marks and tears in their clothes.

'Is that what you're doing?' Jack replied as Bunnymund delivered a round house kick to the face of one. He got a full grin in reply, bright green eyes sparking with laughter when they met his.  Jack smiled back, before another pirate leapt at him, and he was drawn back into the fray.

In the air, a net snagged the tail end of Sandy's plane, disintegrating it and he evacuated, gliding down to the Guardians with a little sand parachute on his back. Several feet from the ground, the parachute disappeared and he dropped down, his feet hitting the platform and sending a shockwave of sand spiralling out around him. It engulfed the Guardians protectively and sent the pirates flying in all directions, expanding in a glittering golden dome to the higher levels. It swallowed the pirates as they scrambled to get out of range as it swelled to the edges of the palace, trapping everything in its path. 

It stopped only when it could go no further, did not try to force its way out of Tooth's palace and began to recede. Sandy pulled it all back into the palm of his hand, safe, and dusted off his hands.

He looked up at the Guardians with a wide smile and gave them a thumbs up. Jack dropped his arm away from his face, blinked at the stillness of the palace around him.

'Couldn't you have done that first?' he asked. Sandy shrugged, sand flurrying around his head.

'Right,' Jack said, staring blankly at the unreadable symbols dancing over Sandy’s head. 'That’s great, little man but, now wha-'

 _Good Morning, Punjam Hy Loo!_ A voice boomed through the palace, drawing out the "O"'s like an upbeat radio talk show host who had one too many coffees before six in the morning.  _And_ welcome _! One and all, to the show of the CENTURY!_

The Guardians tensed, raised their weapons ready for a fight. They looked around for the origin of the voice when someone dropped onto the platform behind them, and they spun around to face him.

'Are you serious?' Jack said, eyeing the Dream Pirate up and down in disbelief. He looked more like the front man of a glam rock band than a pirate: buckles and straps and braided leather and studs and gold and jewels decorated every visible layer of his wardrobe, glitter making him sparkle like Sandy. The tails of his jacket flapped behind him and his heeled boots clicked against the podium as he paced, spinning an obsidian black cane topped with a gold pommel between his fingers in one hand, the fingerless gloves covered with silver rings on each finger; skulls and roses and dragon heads and coiling snakes. They bounced the light across his face as he lifted the cane of up to his lips, using it like a microphone.

'And might I say, this is shaping up to be a spec _tac_ ular event!' he announced, his voice amplified through it. His lips, painted gold, pulled wide into a grin as he looked down at the Guardians, glitter dust falling from the mass of spiked black locks haloing his head. 'The Guardians of Childhood, all back together!'

'And do my eyes deceive me?' he asked with gleeful surprise, crouching low and leaning over the edge of his stage to get a closer look. 'The one and only _Jack_ _Frost_ , alive and kicking.'

'Am... I supposed to know you?' Jack asked, cocking his head to one side.

 _'What_?' he gasped, straightening with a jolt, his eyes widening and he clasped his hand to his chest in mock hurt. He collected himself and grinned. 'Don't tell me I didn't make a big enough impression the last time?'

He twirled his cane in his hand, gripped the top and pulled, revealing a slim blade made of pure darkness. Black tendrils unfurled from it, as if it were alive, reaching up to wrap around his fingers and hand.

Jack blinked at it, mind blank. The Guardians reacted more than he did: Bunnymund grabbed his arm and pulled him back behind them, the Guardians forming a barrier between them. The pirate chuckled, replacing the rapier.

'Well, then, allow me to reintroduce myself,' he said, and bowed dramatically. 'I am Captain Jacabob, the Guardian Killer.'

'Right,' Jack said, unimpressed. He looked between the Guardians and the pirate captain. 'Well then, Captain, now introductions are over, you think you can be on your way and stop wrecking everything?’

He gestured around Tooth’s palace to emphasise his point.

'Oh, that?' Jacabob chuckled. ‘All great performers deserve a grand entrance. Especially when facing such a hospitable crowd.'

He gestured to them, chuckling. 'I didn't expect to get all seven of you, again,' he mused, crossing his legs and cocking his hip as he leaned on his cane, studying them interestedly. 'This is rather exciting.'

'Well, now that you have, pack up and ship off,' Jack said. 'Or you've got a fight on your hands. If you think we're just going to hand over the kids' dreams to you...'

'Now why would I want you to give us the dreams, when it's so much more fun to _take_?'

Jack narrowed his eyes at Jacabob, felt the back of his neck tingle and he looked over his shoulder as a harpoon jettisoned from the barrel of the launcher from the higher platforms, right towards them. Sandy caught sight of it as well, and stomped his foot, sending a wave of sand around him that knocked the Guardians out of the way. He raised his whips to knock the harpoon away when it exploded into a net and fell on him, snagging him in the ropes.

Jack shook his head to clear it, looked over his shoulder and saw Sandy get gathered up in a bundle attached to a battered metal flying contraption that looked like a mix between a glider and a motorcycle.

'Sandy!' he shouted, leaping to his feet and darting after them as the pirate flying the glider bike shot up into the air towards the hole in the wall, dragging a captured Sandy behind him. The Guardians were close behind him, shaking off the confusion that had descended on them from the burst of dream sand.

Captain Jacabob tipped an invisible hat to them and leapt onto the bike, laughing into his cane-microphone.

'We now come to the close of act 1 and on to the main event!'

'Sandy!'

'Into the sleigh!' North ordered, running over to it and leaping into, snapping the reins. The reindeer bellowed and cantered away - without the sleigh, the leather straps and halters flapping uselessly where they'd been cut. North swore, and dream pirates scattered from hiding, laughing. North swung at them with his swords as they followed Jacabob back to the ship; Jack and Tooth jumped into the air, racing after them as they escaped through the gap in the wall.

Jack got there first and stopped short with a yelp as he stared into the inferno of the rockets charging up to fly away. Someone tugged at the back of his hood, pulling him out of the way as the ship fired up, blasting a jet stream of fire through into the palace.

Tooth and Jack flattened themselves against the wall, covering their ears against the roar of the engines, the blast of heat against thier skin like a supernova exploding feet away. He couldn’t breathe in the heat, the power of it thrumming through his body, before it shot away from the palace, Sandy on board.

Jack shook his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears and the tingling under his skin from the force of the engines. Nausea rolled in his stomach, threatening to empty its meagre contents. He swallowed, wavering in the air before he pushed himself off the wall and swung through the opening, shooting after the jet stream left behind by the ship, and followed it up through the clouds into the higher atmosphere, racing after it.

He burst through the clouds, saw the endless clear blue above him and nothing else. He pivoted, looking around for it but there was nothing except empty sky. He turned full circle again, just to make sure he hadn't missed it, hadn't overlooked a speck in the distance or the glint of sun against the hull, but it was gone.

He gritted his teeth in anger, rolling his staff in his hand before he dropped back beneath the clouds and flew back to Tooth palace.

'They're gone,' he said when he dropped back onto the platform the others stood on. 'I couldn't catch up... I'm sorry.'

'It's alright, Jack,' Koz assured him. 'It's not your fault.'

'They're too fast,' Tooth added, sinking to her knees and dropping her head into her hands. 'That's the one ship we've never been able to catch.'

'We do have to get Sandy back,' North said, tapping his swords against his shoulders as he paced back and forth. 'Think, think, think.'

'They could be anywhere, North,' Bunnymund said. 'They could already be heading to his island, we'd never find them!'

‘They’ll devour the whole world’s dreams within days with Sandy as their prisoner,' Tooth added. Just as she said it, hundreds of Pitch's nightmares trotted into view, their bellies full and buzzing with mini faeries or laden heavy with tooth boxes. The ones carrying the mini faeries disintegrated into sand, setting the faeries free.

Tooth instantly gathered a cluster of them in her hands, stroking their heads.

'Oh my poor little darlings, are you okay?' she crooned, looking around at the rest of them. She turned to Pitch, who followed his nightmares out of the shadows, calling the black sand back to him. His skin looked significantly darker than what it had been first thing that morning. Jack squinted in confusion, but the others didn’t seem bothered by the noticeable change: Tooth’s gaze was full of nothing but gratitude. ‘Thank you, Pitch, for helping protect them.’

‘It would’ve done us a disadvantage for them to be caught in the crossfire,’ Pitch replied after a moment, inspecting his nails rather meticulously for someone who used his own hands as an alternative to an actual bow. ‘You need them for collecting teeth, and the tooth boxes were a potential target. It was the most logical use for the nightmares.’

‘Quick thinking,’ North agreed. ‘It saved us from more disaster than Sandy being kidnapped.’

Pitch frowned, jerking his head in a short nod and turned away, focusing on the nightmare beside him. Jack realised with a start that Pitch was uncomfortable, unsure how to process the information. He didn’t have time to dwell on it, when one dazed little faerie spiralled in loops away from the others slowly gaining their balance again, straying too close to the platform's edge. She dropped out of the air and Jack caught her mid fall before she tumbled the hundred feet to the ground, clutching her close to his chest.

'Hey, careful there, li'l Baby Tooth,' he said as he uncurled his fingers, looking down at the small faerie curled up in his palm, looking confused and dazed. 'You okay?'

The faerie nodded, standing up on shaky feet. She tested her wings, taking to the air hesitantly, then gained more confidence as she flitted around Jack's head. She squeaked, smiling at him. He smiled back, and she chirped in delight at the sight of his teeth, clapping happily before she darted back to Tooth.

Pitch turned to the nightmares still carrying the tooth boxes.

'Put the teeth back where they belong,' he ordered.

'Help them,' Tooth said, directing her faeries after the nightmares as they sprang up into the higher levels, back to the towering columns of archives. The palace buzzed with activity again as the faeries and nightmares set to work.

'At least we don't have to worry about them, now,' Pitch said. 'But Tooth is right, they’ll be able to feast by the hundred with Sandy. There’ll be nothing left but nightmares running loose, and I'll never catch them all.'

'Even if we could, the damage they'd cause to the children-'

'A-ha! Idea!' North said, pointing one sword at Bunnymund. He stared at North along the flat of the blade, cocking an eyebrow.

'We protect children, yes? We protect them from bad dreams! All it takes is one good feeling to turn nightmare into dream, yes?'

'North,’ Tooth said incredulously. ‘You're talking about the dreams of _every_ _single_ child across seven continents, that's millions of kids dreams-'

'I travel world in one night, how hard can it be?' he said, shrugging.

'He's got a point,' Bunnymund agreed with a smile. ‘I do it in a day.’

'We follow nightmares back to pirates, follow pirates back to ship, get on board the ship and get Sandy back,' North added. Pitch smiled, although it looked strained.

'It is always a pleasure to give nightmares, nightmares,' he said.

'See? Is all good,' North said. 'We have Pitch and his nightmares, we have you and faeries, Jack is fastest flyer I ever saw -'

'Woah, what? Oh no,' Jack said, holding his hands up in refusal, backing away from them. 'No, no way. This is like, major Guardian stuff. You really don't want my help, I'll just mess stuff up.'

'Jack, this is no time for doubts,' North said. 'Sandy is in danger, and because he is in danger, so are the kids.'

'All the more reason you need people who know what they're doing,' Jack replied, gripping his staff tight in his hands. 'And that Jacabob dude clearly thinks he has unfinished business with me.'

'Maybe you should finish it,' Pitch suggested quietly. Jack shook his head.

'The guy managed to nab a Guardian, _surrounded_ by other Guardians, from a Guardian's _home_ ,' Jack said. 'Pretty sure if anyone finished anything it'd be him, and yeah, as much as I hate being alone, I'd rather be alive and alone than _dead_. Like, permanent dead, I mean.'

'Jack, we need your help. We need you.'

Jack stared up at North, seeing the pleading on his face.

'I'm sorry, North,' he said, shaking his head. 'I can't.'

He turned away, swinging his staff over his shoulders as he headed for the exit.

'Told you he wasn't Jack,' Bunnymund murmured to North, folding his arms across his chest as he glared at the retreating spirit. Pitch glanced between them, before he stepped forward.

'What if there was something in it for you?' he called after Jack, and Jack stopped, looked over his shoulder. He cocked an eyebrow, interested. Pitch smiled, cat like, a dangerous glint in his eye as he approached Jack.

'Pitch, what're you doing?' Kozmotis asked, watching his brother warily. Around his neck, the diamond on the golden chain shone brightly, mirroring the soft glow of the gold around Pitch’s wrists and neck. Pitch ignored him, advancing on Jack, who turned to face him.

'What do you mean?' he asked, suspicious.

'All those years alone, no memories, nothing to tell you who you are,' he said. Jack narrowed his eyes, hooked by what Pitch was saying, and closed the gap between them. Pitch's smile widened. 'Wouldn't it be so much easier if _only_ you could find all the answers in a little box?'

He raised one hand, and shadows swarmed around it, coalescing into a cylinder before bursting apart to reveal a bright, oblong box with a familiar face on the end of it.

'Pitch!' Tooth squawked, aghast. Pitch ignored her, watching Jack. Jack's eyes flicked down to the box and back up to meet Pitch's gaze. Against the dark smoke-grey his skin had become, the gold in his eyes seemed to glow, just like the metal bands he wore. Pitch's smirk widened, a dare in his eyes.

Jack lunged for it.

His fingers closed around air as the box disappeared in a puff of black smoke. He snarled, levelling his staff at Pitch.

'Give it back.'

The bogeyman smirked. 'Nah.'

Jack lunged for him again, and he pivoted away, dodging the arc of the staff. Jack followed him, his staff pulsating with light. Pitch threw up a wall of shadows as jagged daggers of ice whistled through the air, exploding into black shards and he sank into the shadows, appearing in the lower levels. Jack leapt over the edge of the platform, following him.

Tooth darted after them to intervene, but Kozmotis grabbed her arm, pulling her back.

'Don't get between the two of them,' he warned. 'You're likely to get hurt.'

'Pitch stole those teeth!' she seethed, glaring up him as he dodged and ducked Jack's attacks, riling him.

'I know,' Koz agreed. 'But he’s too close to the dark just now to be reasoned with; we can talk some sense into him when they've calmed dow-'

Jack and Pitch crashed to the ground, tangled in one another and rolled off the edge.

'Oh dear,' Koz said, and the Guardians rushed after them, dropping through the palace into the glade of one of Tooth gardens and looking around for the two spirits.

'Where are they -'

Jack crashed into the mosaic painting the wall, falling towards the lake. The water froze as soon as Jack made contact with it, his staff spinning away from him to land at the Guardians' feet. He pushed himself up, grimacing as Pitch landed on the water's edge, smirking. He glared at Pitch, looked around for his staff. He caught sight of it, and looked between it and Pitch before he scrambled up and ran for it.

Pitch was quicker, wrapping his arms around his neck and waist from behind as soon as his feet touched soil and pulling him off his feet. Jack kicked out, tried to twist out of his grip.

'Let me go!'

'I don't think so.'

'You have _no_ right to keep them from me! They're _mine_!'

'In case you haven't realised, I'm the _bogeyman_ ,' Pitch snapped. 'Regardless of whether or not something is in my right to do does not influence whether or not I _do_ _it_.'

Jack snarled, twisting and kicking more furiously until Pitch had had enough, grabbing his wrist and twisting his arm behind his back, grabbed his hair and used it to push him onto his knees. Jack pushed up against his hand, and Pitch's fingers tightened in his hair, keeping his head down. Jack's eyes burned with angry tears, staring at the ground as they both gasped for breath.

'Listen, Frost,' Pitch snarled. 'Sandman is in the hands of Dream Pirates, who can and _will_ torture him for his dreams. If that happens, the whole world will be overrun by nightmares and children will find it very difficult to believe in anything else, like, say, my fellow Guardians. We are limited in time to stop that from happening and we need all the help we can get. That includes you, and if I have to blackmail, threaten or physically manhandle you into helping, so be it.'

Jack growled wordlessly, trying to pull himself out of Pitch's vice grip. His fingers dug painfully into Jack's scalp, and tears of pain mixed with anger welled in Jack's eyes again. His knees ground into the dirt beneath him, aching as he forced his weight on them to try to get some leverage against Pitch. He lost, again, staying on his knees. He squeezed his eyes shut, opening them again to blurred vision, and a set of furred feet in front of him. Pitch tensed, Jack could feel it through his very fingertips and knew he was glaring at Bunnymund over his head.

****

'That's enough, Pitch,' Bunny said sternly. 'Let him go and leave him alone.'

Pitch said nothing, glaring at him, before he smiled, cruel and sharp.

'Now, really, rabbit? Jack on his knees in front of you? Thought you'd _love_ to see that again.'

Jack's breath hitched, and Bunny saw red; he drew his arm back and swung at Pitch, his fist landing against his jaw with a satisfying thump. Pitch jerked back, his hands releasing Jack’s hair and arm as he stumbled, falling into the shallows of the pond behind him.

'Don't you say shit like that again,' Bunny snarled, following him to the edge of the pond, towering over him. 'Or I'll make your life a permanent livin' hell!'

Pitch cackled, rubbing his jaw where Bunny had punched him. He grinned up at the Guardian.

'The cage does that just fine,' he said, mimicking Bunny's jab from the previous day. Unlike Pitch, Bunny didn't flinch, glaring at him.

'Enough,' he said. 'Give up the tooth box, Pitch.'

'Nah,' Pitch said, pushing himself to his feet and wiping the water from his face. 'I think I'll keep it.'

'Pitch!'

'Now if you'll excuse me, we have nightmares to round up,' he said, wrapping himself in shadows. 'Ta-ta.'

He disappeared, leaving the Guardians in Tooth gardens. Bunny snorted in aggravation, turning away in disgust. He glanced down as he walked back to the Guardians, looking at Jack still curled up on his knees on the ground, rubbing his arm where Pitch had held it. He growled low at the back of his throat and reached down, grabbing the back of his hoodie and yanking him up in one fluid motion.

Jack squeaked at the sudden movement, stumbling to maintain balance. He looked up at Bunny, who released his hold on the material and stared at Jack. Jack dropped his gaze, looking down at his wrist instead.

'Oi,' Bunny said quietly, getting his attention. 'Don't take any of that shit from him, he feeds off it.'

He ignored the voice in his head that reminded him Jack used to meet Pitch's taunting head on, the two of them descending into banter that would seem cruel and vindictive to outsiders, but to them it was the greatest displays of trust Jack and Pitch had between them, sharing one of the strongest bonds of friendship amongst the Guardians. His Jack would've gotten out of Pitch's hold and kicked his arse for that comment, taunted him right back for it and then suggest drinks afterwards.

Jack didn't say anything, just nodded. Bunny sighed, turned away as the Guardians approached Jack.

'I am so sorry about your teeth, Jack,' Tooth apologised, handing him his staff. He took it wordlessly, slinging it over his shoulder and shrugged.

'We'll get your memory box back,' Kozmotis promised. 'I apologise for my brother's crass behaviour, I will make him see sense of this.'

'Where will he go to get the nightmares?' Jack asked.

'What?'

Jack looked up at North with a stony expression. 'Will he stick close to you guys, when you're going after the nightmares?'

'Yes, we stick together,' North explained. 'Where one Guardian goes, so do the rest.'

'Guess I'm going, too.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update: 28th February 2016


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Operation: Rescue Sandy is a go!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear readers,
> 
> Before you begin this chapter, I would ask that you take a few moments to read this as I would like to apologise to all of you, but I'm afraid this fanfic along with my other WIP will have to go on hiatus for the foreseeable future. I have recently found out that I have failed one of my university modules and as such will need to redo the assessment, and after that, I will have to start working towards my final dissertation to graduate with an MSc. While I have managed to balance my university work with leisurely writing in the past, this failure has knocked me into a negative head space regarding my studies, and I am now already stressing about facing the final assignments to complete my degree.
> 
> I would also like to apologise that this chapter is not the one I promised or the one that you hoped for, as I was unable to complete the chapter to the desired point I had wanted to finish it, and rather than simply put the fic on a hiatus with no update, I am uploading what I do have with the best cut off point I was able to achieve with this chapter, and as such, I feel I should warn you, it does end on a cliffhanger.
> 
> I hope that once I have successfully passed the resit and I am under way with my dissertation, the stress will be lessened and I will be able to resume posting my fics. I will still attempt to add little snippets to my writing as and when I have a spare moment so that when posting resumes, I have something to give readers. Until such a time, I can only apologise for leaving this the way it is, and I hope that readers will bear with me until I can begin posting again.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and, as always, I hope you enjoy the latest chapter
> 
> xXx

The nightmares were easy to find, the pirates already gorging on the children’s dreams, but were not so easy to catch, bolting at first sight of the Guardians. They chased them all across the world, from Hong Kong to San Francisco, and got no closer to finding the pirates leaving them behind. All the while, Jack kept an eye out for Pitch, waiting to spring on him and get his teeth back. He shouldn’t care so much; he’d gone so long without them that whatever they held was dead and long gone. But they were his. He deserved to know. The distraction of the race helped, especially since Bunnymund had taken to bantering with him after the battle of Tooth Palace instead of antagonising him.

‘Oi, Frostbite, yer falling behind,’ he called out as they raced over the rooftops of China Town, Bunnymund leaping over him as he hopped from roof to roof.

‘Hey, I’m giving you a head start before I leave you in the dust,’ Jack said, flipping over in the air and flying backwards as he came up beside Bunnymund.

‘Yeah, right, like you’re gonna be able to keep up, anyway.’

‘Is that a _challenge_ , Cottontail?’ he said with a grin, the nickname spilling from his lips before he could register it. Bunnymund glanced at him out the corner of his eye, something flashing in them too quickly to catch.

‘You don’t want to race a rabbit, mate,’ he warned with a grin, and took off in a sprint, leaving Jack flagging behind.

‘Woah!’ Jack gasped, before the thrill of it overwhelmed his surprise and he shot off after the Guardian, flying serpentine around the high chimneys as he looked out for more nightmares.

‘Racing?’ North called out as he leapt from a chimney in a puff of golden dream sand, his beard and coat and hat dusted with it till North practically glittered. ‘We are racing, now?’

‘This is no time for fun and games,’ Kozmotis said from astride one of Pitch’s nightmares, exasperated. He pulled it to a halt on the edge of a rooftop and frowned, ducking his head as Tooth whizzed past him, laughing.

‘Best just keep score for us, Koz, there’s no chance you’d win,’ she teased, barrel-rolling in the air and diving into the highest window of the nearest apartment block, collecting teeth alongside her fairies while they searched out the nightmares.

Kozmotis pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I will not be goaded into joining this by petty teasing.’

‘Good,’ Pitch said, sliding from the shadows behind him, a wide grin on his face as three nightmares trotted up behind him. ‘Because you’re already three behind.’

He dropped back into the shadow pooling at his feet, leaving Kozmotis staring at the spot where he’d stood. Kozmotis looked up at the nightmares staring at him blankly, blinking their golden eyes lazily at him.

‘Oh, fine.’

*****

They raced through the night, jumping between homes and clearing whole cities within minutes, the race for the nightmares turning into petty sabotage to get the numbers, whooping and laughing until they found themselves in a recognisable town in North America. Jack grinned, barrel-rolling over the snow dusted rooftops and around the chimneys, and almost bumped into one of Tooth’s fairies when he jumped up on to a rooftop he recognised.

‘Woah!’ he yelped the same moment she squeaked in panic, the gold coin that had been clutched in her tiny hands tumbled from her grasp and bounced off the roof tiles, rolling down the slope. They shared a panicked look between them before diving after it, and Jack reached out and snatched it out of the air just as it bounced off the gutter ready to disappear into the night.

He swung upright, a grin on his face as he held the coin up between two fingers for the fairy to see. ‘Ta-da! See, no harm done.’

The fairy squeaked, her plumage flaring in irritation like Tooth’s, and she snatched the coin from him, inspecting it carefully. Satisfied, she nodded, and her glare snapped back up to Jack.

‘Okay, okay,’ he said, holding up his hands in truce. ‘I’m sorry I ran into you… Hey, you’re the Baby Tooth from Tooth’s palace, aren’t you? The one I caught?’

Baby Tooth paused, then nodded shyly with a chirp. Jack smiled, hopping onto the window ledge and crouching down, swinging his staff over his shoulder. Baby Tooth followed him, hovering around his head. He lifted his hand for her to perch on his curled fingers, and she daintily stepped onto them, curling her legs under her.

‘You haven’t had any trouble out collecting teeth?’ he asked. ‘With the Dream Pirates on the loose?’

Baby Tooth grimaced, and held her hand up flat, tilting it side to side.

‘No Dream Pirates, but the nightmares are causing havoc?’ Jack guessed. Baby Tooth nodded, and looked over her shoulder into the dim room through the window. Jack followed her gaze, pursing his lips in thought, before he smiled. ‘You want me to give it a quick sweep? Make sure it’s all clear?’

Baby Tooth chirped, perking up and flitted into the air, circling him happily.

‘Okay, okay,’ Jack agreed with a chuckle, pushing open the window and slipping inside. ‘You watch my back, I watch yours?’

Baby Tooth nodded and followed him into the room, glancing around at the shadows dancing on the wall, the tree branches outside the window making shadow puppets on the wall. Jack kept his staff aloft, checking in the corners of the room, under the desk and under the bed. The place was empty, and the kid in the bed slept on peacefully. On the nightstand, a nightlight stood with multi-coloured glowing swords, glowing softly: not enough to illuminate the room, but strong enough to display the crayon drawing of a young boy flying over the heads of six other kids on a make shift sleigh.

_Ah_.

Jack grinned, recognising the sleeping kid as the one he’d taken for a ride the day before, and he’d gotten a loose baby tooth knocked when he landed. Jack chuckled at the memory, inspecting the drawing while Baby Tooth wriggled under his pillow for the tooth.

‘The kid’s got some talent,’ Jack mused, unfolding one corner of the paper that had got caught under itself. ‘Whatcha think, Baby Tooth?’

Baby Tooth flitted up from under the pillow on the other side of the bed, the gold coin replaced with a shiny white tooth in her hands. She squeaked, nodding in agreement. She held up the tooth in victory, and Jack chuckled, swinging his staff over his shoulder.

‘Alright, go, Baby Tooth! Now, where’s our next stop to hunt down some m–’

He stopped short, whirling around to stare at the wardrobe opposite the bed. The door was ajar from its partner, a sliver of black seen through the crack between them.

Jack stared at the wardrobe, and raised his staff warily. Baby Tooth hovered behind him, following him as he reached forward with his staff, hooking the crook around the door –

\-- A pirate exploded from the wardrobe, the doors slamming open as it leapt at Jack with a shriek. Ice exploded from Jack's staff, throwing it against the drawers with a crash and he stumbled back, knocking against the corner of the bed before he righted himself, whirling around to face the pirate as it clamoured to its feet and leapt for the window.

‘No, you don’t!’ Jack snarled, bolting after him. The pirate sneered at Jack over his shoulder, before throwing the window open. He turned to leap out of it when he stopped short in surprise, and North’s fist slammed into his face. The pirate flew back, crashing into Jack and they fell to the floor as the Guardians rushed into the room: Tooth and North through the window, Kozmotis and Pitch sliding out from the shadows on the far wall, and Bunny hopped out of a hole that had mysteriously opened in the kid’s bedroom floor.

Pandemonium ensued as they all piled on the pirate while Jack wrestled for a hold over the pirate, trapping his arms to his body as he wriggled in Jack’s grasp, kicking and scratching at him. They rolled across the floor in the mad confusing scramble, before a hand wrapped around the hood of Jack’s sweater and he was on his feet. The pirate was pulled from his grasp, hanging by the scruff of the neck from North’s hand, swords and boomerangs pointing at his throat, shadows wrapped around it like loops of rope from neck to ankles.

Jack added his staff to the weapons levered at the pirate, and the pirate glared at them venomously.

‘Don’t you think I’m telling you anything,’ he spat. ‘I’m not saying nothing.’

‘Oh, we can be quite persuasive,’ Pitch warned coldly, drawing the arrow back a little further: without the need of a bow, there was evidently no need to worry about tiring under the draw weight it would take to pull back an arrow of that size. ‘I have some friends of yours, in here, that can attest to that.'

He inclined his head slightly, tapping his forefinger against his temple. The pirate hissed at him, struggling against the bonds.

'You're all going to regret this, you will. We'll drink the world dry with that Sandman of yours on the Dream Eater.'

'Oh, so he's still alive,' Pitch drawled. 'We appreciate the reassurance. Where did you say the ship was, now?'

The pirate snapped his mouth shut with a click, his nostrils flaring. Pitch smiled, cloaked in shadow so dark only his eyes, like sharp flints, were distinguishable in the darkness. Jack glanced at him out the corner of his eye. For the first time that night hesitant to obtain his teeth from the bogeyman; of course, getting to Sandy was the priority, but the ominous aura rolling off him was certainly a deterrent.

'Oi,' Bunnymund growled, holding the sharpened angle of his boomerang closer to the pirate’s throat. 'We asked you a question.'

The pirate pursed his lips, likely to spit at Bunnymund, when a bright light engulfed them, blinding them momentarily.

Jack blinked the dots from his eyes, glancing over to the light's source, and saw the kid – Jamie, that was his name – kneeling on his bed, torch in one hand, baseball bat in the other, ready to swing it. Jack saw the moment Jamie realised he was dealing with no normal intruders, his expression shifting from fear, to shock, confusion and then disbelief, the light moving from North and the pirate to Bunny, Kozmotis, before it settled on Tooth, and he grinned, exposing the gap in his teeth from yesterdays sledding accident.

'The Tooth fairy! You came!'

'Oh, um… Hi there!' Tooth said cheerfully, dropping her weapon and hiding it behind her back. 'Of course I did!'

Baby Tooth squeaked, flitting round to hover by her shoulder, holding the tooth aloft like a trophy.

'He can see us?' Jack asked, forgetting about the pirate, going slack as he stared at Jamie in shock.

'Most of us,' Bunnymund muttered, and Jack recognised the way the torch, and Jamie’s eyes, quickly passed over him without pause as he stared at each Guardian in turn, wonder in his eyes to see them all in his room.

Jack deflated, and ducked his head, wringing the neck of his staff, feeling stupid for getting his hopes up again.

'Don't feel too bad,' Pitch murmured, and Jack looked over his shoulder to see Pitch hiding behind Kozmotis, deep in the shadows he cast from the torchlight, out of sight from Jamie. He stared at Kozmotis’s back, as if he could see through him to Jamie, his brows drawn tight and pinched, his mouth set in a hard line. 'Sometimes even when you can be seen, it is rarely a good idea that you _should_ be.'

'Um, guys, what do we do?' Tooth asked. 'He's awake!'

'What is _that_?' Jamie asked before anyone could answer, his eyes focused on the Dream Pirate, who hissed at him.

'Uhhh...'

'Tell him?' Jack suggested, shrugging one shoulder and cocking an eyebrow.

'Will give him nightmares!' North replied, aghast.

'It'll give him nightmares if he's left to fill in the blanks himself.'

'It is a Dream Pirate, young man,' Kozmotis answered, before North and Jack could argue further. 'They feed on the dreams of youth and turn them into violent nightmares. They have captured our comrade, the Sandman, and this one -' He levelled the tip of his broadsword at the pirate's neck '- is going to lead us to his ship.'

'Think again,' the pirate snarled, and twisted out of North's grip, the bindings falling free as he kicked Bunny away and dove out the window into the night.

_'Scherbachov_!' North swore, steadying himself.

'Come on, we can't let him escape!' Jack said, careening after him. North and the others followed in a blur of movement, piling out the window or through tunnels or shadows with final partings.

'Happy Easter!'

‘Merry Christmas!’

'Remember to floss!'

 

‘Hey! Wait!' Jamie rushed to the open window, leaning out of it as far as he could to watch the chase for the Dream Pirate across the rooftops.

'Jamie?' Sophie asked tiredly, poking her head into the room. Looking around with bright green eyes, she scrubbed at them through her messy blonde bangs.

'Sophie!' Jamie gasped, glancing over his shoulder before his eyes were drawn back outside. 'Sophie, quick! You gotta see this! Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are fighting space pirates!'

'Bunny! Hop-hop!' She said excitedly, running up to the window, only to trip and stumble over something. 'Ow!'

'Sophie?' Jamie asked, whirling around and rushing to her side. 'What happened?'

Their eyes were drawn to a glittering ball rolling on the floor, and Jamie picked up the snow globe curiously, watching the colours and glitter swirl in the orb.

'Bunny?' Sophie asked, holding her hands up to try touching the globe.

'No, Sophie, I don't think- hey!'

'Bunny! Hop-hop!' Sophie said determinedly as she knocked the snow globe from his hands. It rolled across the floor, and a large, swirling portal of greens and yellow opened up in front of Jamie's wardrobe with a pop.

They both stared at it in silent shock, unable to believe their eyes, before they slowly turned to face each other.

'Ooooh...'

*

‘There he is!’ North shouted, snapping the reins, driving the reindeer after the pirate. Kozmotis and Pitch rode on the backs of Nightmares, while Tooth and Jack rode the winds in pursuit, weaving their way around chimneys and weather vanes; Bunnymund stayed on foot, sprinting across rooftops as the pirate leapt between houses.

The pirate took a sharp turn, swinging from a phone wire like monkey bars and leaping across the street, cackling at the distance between the Guardians when a hard, curved hook snagged his neck and yanked him back. He toppled to the rooftop, groaning around a sore throat, gasping for breath as Jack stood over him smugly, leaning on his staff and staring down at him.

‘So, think you can hook us up with that info on your ship?’ he asked, his smile broadening as the pirate groaned.

Jack looked up as the Guardians came up behind him, crowding around the pirate.

‘Excellent work, Jack,’ North said, clapping him on the shoulder with such a force Jack almost stumbled. He righted himself, shrugging his hoodie back into a comfortable position and rubbed his shoulder with a wince.

‘Thanks, North,’ he said, watching Kozmotis and Pitch descend from their nightmares and stride over to the pirate. The pirate glared up at them.

‘I won’t tell you nothing…’ he rasped, coughing drily.

‘Oh, like I said,’ Pitch said, a dangerous edge of vindictive glee in his voice. ‘We can be _quite_ persuasive.’

He grabbed the pirate by the front of his loose shirt collar, holding him up in the air with one hand as if he was a rag doll. The ominous aura Jack felt while standing in Jamie’s room returned with intensity, the night becoming darker despite the full moon hanging low and bright in the clear sky. The shadows around Pitch deepened, and Jack stepped back as the shadows expanded, even though he knew it was stupid. The diamond hanging from Kozmotis’s neck flared with light, the golden bands around Pitch’s neck and wrists glowing with it, pulsing on his skin.

‘Uh… guys?’ Jack whispered.

‘Don’t look,’ North replied, already turned away with the other Guardians, but Jack couldn’t take his eyes off Pitch, his dark figure silhouetted against the moon, the squirming pirate dangling from his fingertips. He smiled, cruel and sadistic, before he slowly parted his lips, opening his mouth wide as he brought the pirate in closer and –

‘Oh, man,’ Jack said, covering his mouth with one hand and wrapping the other around his waist as he turned away, pulling his eyes away from the scene. He couldn’t block out the screaming though, higher than any creature should be able to manage and still be audible, and the wet, gulping swallows under the screams. He heard the pirate beg for it to stop, for mercy in between wordless screams, and the slick gulps stopped, the screams dying out into pained, gasping moans.

Jack risked peaking out the corner of his eye, saw Kozmotis standing behind his brother with an unreadable expression on his face, and Pitch, eyes wide like a mad man, his grin stretched from ear to ear. The pirate - what was still there of the pirate –

Jack had to turn away again, or he’d chuck his cookies in front of everyone.

‘You know, this can be over a lot quicker,’ Pitch said, his voice velvet soft, a smoothness to it that hid dark promises. ‘It can take less than a second, _pop_ , and then there is nothing but darkness. I don’t _have_ to savour this, but I will if it makes you tell me what I want to know.’

‘You’ll kill me anyway,’ the pirate gasped.

‘Oh, no,’ Pitch drawled. ‘I can’t kill you, that’s not what I’m doing. What I _will_ do, though, if you don’t start talking, is find a deep, dark hole where things that even _you’d_ have nightmares about live, and I’d leave you there for a few centuries. Alone, in pain, half of you missing and never able to die, listening to the noises in the dark and waiting for the end that will never come. Then I’d return, and pick away at a few choice pieces before throwing you back into that hole; and I’ll just keep repeating the cycle. One hundred years, two hundred years, five, a thousand: how long do you want to stay in this miserable state? How long will you be able to handle it?’

‘Or you can start talking, and it’ll be over: you’ll be whole again, in comfortable darkness surrounded by things like _you_ instead,’ Pitch offered. ‘I’ll even play nice, and I won’t use you against your crewmen when we get to the ship. Now, start talking, or get ready to start screaming.’

There was a pause, and Pitch must’ve have started again when the pirate screamed to wait, wait, _wait_ and Pitch stopped, waiting patiently as the pirate began to murmur quietly to him in a rush, too low for Jack to hear.

‘Thank you,’ Pitch said when the pirate stopped, a smile in his voice. ‘That wasn’t too difficult, now was it?’

‘Pitch, do not drag this out any longer,’ Kozmotis said tightly. ‘Let us retrieve Sanderson and deal with these creatures once and for all.’

‘As you wish, _brother_ ,’ Pitch replied, before he addressed the pirate once more. ‘Oh, I should let you know; if you’re _lying_ to us, I can pull you from the darkness, completely whole, and we start this all over again. So, anything you might want to tell me?’

The pirate was silent, so Pitch must’ve taken that as a no: there was a faint _pop_ in the air, and the shadows retreated, the air lightening and Jack turned back to see Pitch looking just about as he usually did. Even the bands around his wrists and neck weren’t as glow-y as they had been in the Tooth palace, and his skin remained soft grey. He looked at the Guardians, a small smile on his lips.

‘Shall we?’

*****

Pitch directed them up above the clouds, hardly straying from Burgess air space when they spotted the long trails of golden dream sand leading back to the pirate ship, squatting on the thick swirls of a cumulonimbus cloud like a fat, dozing toad, dark and silent. The sails were secured to the three masts sentried along the length of the ship, settled for the time being. Only their colours flew above the crows nest, black and gold and tattered at the edges.

North carefully guided the sleigh through the clouds to sit under the deep, wide belly of the ship, the once gleaming metal stained with space dust and debris clinging to its underside till it looked black.

‘Okay, here is plan,’ North whispered as the Guardians gathered round him. ‘We sneak on board, we split up to find Sandy, and we get him out of there.’

‘How do we signal the others when we find him?’ Jack asked.

‘Telepathic link between Guardians. Is not very strong, but if we are all close enough together in same place we can sense each others well being,’ North explained, and Jack saw Bunnymund roll his eyes, as if Jack should know all this already. He scowled, his grip tightening on his staff.

‘I suggest we disengage their weapons,’ Kozmotis said. ‘It will give us a window of opportunity against them.’

‘I can handle that,’ Bunnymund offered.

'Okay. Jack...' North paused, staring at him with a worried expression. 'Jacabob has a history with you, one I am sure he would be happy to repeat. I don't want you scouting alone.'

'North, come on, I'll be fine,' Jack said, shuffling awkwardly under the attention. 'There's no guarantee he'll even be on the ship.'

'Still, there is high risk in leaving you alone, especially since we have just got you back,' North said. Jack frowned, biting his tongue against the rebuke forming on it that he wasn't their Jack.

'We need to cover as much ground as possible quickly,' Pitch said. 'I can sense your fears in close range, if his spikes I can get to him through the shadows instantly.'

Jack wasn't too keen on that idea, after what he'd seen tonight, but he kept quiet, noticing the glare exchanged between Bunnymund and Pitch, the air between them heavy with tension.

'Very well,' North agreed, nodding his head. He seemed aware of the animosity between Pitch and Bunnymund too, and he stood up, reaching for the iron rails leading up to the deck. 'Come on, follow me.'

They climbed up onto the abandoned deck - Tooth and Jack flying beside them on their ascent - and quickly split up, Bunnymund in search of the control room, Pitch slipping into the shadows to search the galley and the captain's quarters while the rest descended far below deck in search of Sandy, until Jack found himself sneaking down a long hallway with grating for a floor, the walls lined with hissing, clanging metal pipes; pressure gauges swung around the dial, the air heavy on Jack's skin with dry heat.

Baby Tooth poked her head out of his hood, squeaking quietly in his ear.

'Yeah, tell me about it,' he murmured, sweeping his eyes around the hallway again for any signs of life: even if the pirates were taking the dreams like an all-you-can-eat buffet, no one would ever leave a ship completely unmanned without a night crew to watch it. 'I got a bad feeling about this.'

Baby Tooth squeaked in agreement, looking around the corridor apprehensively. She squealed loudly in fright, and Jack pivoted, staff held aloft defensively and shot a burst of ice from the crook of his staff.

A ball of shadow swallowed the ice, muting the lightning crack that accompanied it. It shrank down into nothing, revealing Pitch standing in front of him, hands raised in truce.

Jack dropped his staff to his side, exhaling heavily. 'I thought you were a pirate.'

'My apologies,' Pitch replied, relaxing. 'I didn't expect that reaction from you.'

'Yeah, well, that's the one you got,' Jack grumbled. 'What are you doing here?'

'Looking for Sandy?' Pitch said, cocking an eyebrow and smirking. He lost his arrogance a moment later, sobering. 'I am actually sensing Sandy down this way. You are just an unexpected addition to the party.'

'Really?' Jack asked. 'You can tell where he is?'

'It's more like a compass, I can tell the general direction I need to go to find him,' Pitch explained, walking towards Jack. 'The closer I get, the stronger the pull.'

'Well, come on then,' Jack said, nodding over his shoulder. 'Let’s get Sandy and get out of here.'

Pitch inclined his head in agreement, and they made their way down the corridor in silence. Pitch led them down a flight of steps, deeper into the ship, until claustrophobia began to weigh heavy on Jack the further they travelled.

'I am surprised you haven't asked, yet,' Pitch said, glancing at Jack out the corner of his eye. He clasped his hands behind his back as he walked, as if he were out on a pleasant evening stroll. Jack stared up at him, raising an eyebrow.

'About my teeth?' he asked, and then shrugged. 'Little preoccupied. As soon as we get Sandy though, I'm taking them back.'

'I'll happily acquiesce your demands, since Sandman's return _was_ my stipulation for your help. No, I meant the _other_ thing.'

There was a pause, and Jack swallowed around the bad taste in his throat when he remembered the sound of the pirate screaming, the sight of Pitch feeding on him in the moonlight. The bogeyman had looked gleeful doing it, enjoying every minute the pirate was in pain.

'What the fuck was that?' He asked, unable to help himself. Curiosity overwhelmed the disgust, and he wanted to know.

'The solution to everyone's problems,' Pitch replied with a dry drawl. 'At least, that's what everyone had hoped. You can't kill fear, Jack, but you can control it. Lock it up in a cage and throw away the key. Except Kozmotis keeps the key, and I'm, well I'm the cage.'

'Cages can be escaped,' Jack said hesitantly, looking up at Pitch. 'Locks can be broken.'

Pitch stared back, a sardonic smile on his lips. 'Good thing there's always a back up plan. A cage for a cage, until the keeper of the keys comes back and locks everything up again.'

'Comes back,' Jack repeated. 'You mean reincarnate.'

Pitch nodded, tapping his fingers against his fist behind his back. 'Kozmotis dies, the lock breaks, and the darkness gets a bigger cage, with me trapped there with them.'

'That sounds... horrible,' Jack said. 'North said Tooth once didn't come back for a hundred years. How long are you trapped every time he dies?'

Pitch shrugged. 'I'm free more often than I'm not. We are, after all, technically immortal. Kozmotis reincarnated a few hundred years back and has survived this long. As for the years between, I don't remember them much. It's almost like a trance: most of what I can remember is darkness.'

'That's still horrible,' Jack argued. 'All alone with nothing but pirates and nightmares for company.'

'It's not so bad, if you've got something to think about; something that keeps you sane, keeps you going through the years until you're free again,' Pitch said, looking over his shoulder to Jack, his eyes soft in the dim light. 'Something that makes it not… hurt, as much.'

Jack looked away from the intensity in Pitch's gaze, swallowing. 'What keeps you going?'

Pitch never had a chance to answer, when a noise up ahead interrupted them, and they were instantly on guard.

‘You hear that?’ Jack whispered. Pitch nodded, and they inched along the corridor towards the noise. ‘Which way is your compass pointing?’

‘Exactly where you might think,’ Pitch replied. ‘There’s only one reason why pirates would stay on this ship.’

‘Guess it’s time to crash the party,’ Jack said. Pitch nodded, and they crept forward to the door where the noise emanated from, stepping up on either side of it. Their eyes met, a silent understanding passing between them. Jack raised his staff, held in two hands, and Pitch summoned an arrow in his: he glanced at Jack, nodding his head three times to count down, before Jack blasted the door in with a crack of ice and they stormed inside.

The small guard surrounding Sandy pivoted in shock, knocked back by a blast of icy cold air. Pitch shot arrow after arrow in quick succession; any that he couldn’t get was swallowed by a dome of shadow before they had time to draw their weapons. Jack iced the floor under the feet of one, sending it skidding into the path of one of Pitch’s arrows before he knocked one out with the crook of his staff, swinging it like a baseball bat until they were left with a scattering of pirates surrounding them.

‘Go team,’ Jack said, flipping his staff around his fingers and settling it across his shoulders, nudging one pirate with his toes as he picked his way over to where Sandy hung upside down in the middle of the room.

The Guardian of Dreams was caged in a metal cocoon so that only his head remained visible, the whole thing wrapped in black chains and hanging from a low beam above their heads. Sandy himself didn’t look to be in pain, an expression more aptly described as annoyed distaste twisting his features as he looked at the fallen Dream Pirates. That changed when Jack approached him, a cheerful smile replacing his scowl.

‘Hey there, Sandy, you okay?’ Jack asked, tilting to the side and turning his head so he was looking at Sandy upside down – which to Sandy would be right way up at the moment. He ignored the faint _pop, pop, pop,_  behind him as Pitch got rid of the pirates, and Sandy nodded, unfazed by it as dream sand danced over his head. ‘Uh huh, I still can’t understand you, but I’m glad you’re okay.’

Jack straightened, looking at the contraption Sandy was held in. ‘Let’s get you down from there, okay?’

Sandy nodded in agreement, and Jack quickly set to work lowering Sandy to the ground and loosening the cage. Pitch joined him soon after, his grey skin a shade or two darker than before, but Jack didn’t mention it, and together they pulled the cage encasing Sandy apart and helped him to his feet. Manacles trapped his neck and wrists, the latter twisted uncomfortably behind his back, long loops of the same chain wrapped around his body, and Jack froze them off with a sharp snap.

Sandy, finally free, shook himself to loosen his limbs, slowly pulling his arms around to his sides to ease his shoulders back into use, rubbing them with a grimace.

‘So, little man, thoughts on pursuing the pirate life?’ Pitch joked. Sandy scowled and angrily shook his fist, sand dancing above his head in quite creative shapes.

Pitch chuckled. ‘There will be plenty of time for that, little man, but for now, we best find the others and get out of here. I get the feeling those guards may have been on rotation.’

‘Can you let the Guardians know you’re okay?’ Jack asked. ‘That telepathic link thing you guys have?’

Sandy nodded, and closed his eyes. A moment later Jack felt a burst of warmth ripple through his mind, a sense of ease following it before it dissipated, and he blinked, shaking his head. Sandy opened his eyes, and gave him a thumbs up.

‘Was that…? Cool,’ Jack said with a grin.

‘Funny how you felt it too, given that it’s unique to the Guardians,’ Pitch said innocently. Jack shot him a look, and Pitch smiled, raising his eyebrows.

‘Come on,’ Jack said, and the three of them hurried back along the corridors in the ship, retracing their steps back up onto the deck, where the other Guardians met them. Jack breathed a sigh of relief, being in fresh air and under the clear, open sky again instead of in the narrow confines of the ship’s hallways. The Guardian rushed towards them, greeting Sandy happily, their relief palpable.

‘Thank goodness you’re okay!’ Tooth cooed, looping her arms around Sandy’s shoulders, curling up around him on his floating sand cloud.

‘Is good to see you Sandy,’ North agreed. ‘No lasting damage done?’

Sandy shook his head, holding up his thumb and forefinger in a circle. North clapped him on his back.

‘Excellent. Now, we best get out of here and hunt down –’

Bright lights cut him off, blinding them as they turned to find the source of the glare, shielding their eyes against it. They huddled in a circle, back to back, as pirates clamoured over the sides of the ship, up the rigging and from down in the galley. On the upper deck, in front of the helm, Captain Jacabob leapt onto the carved balustrade with his cane in his hand and a wicked smile on his face.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Jacabob’s voice boomed through his cane-mic, ‘I’d like to welcome our special guests for tonight’s entertainment: give it up for the Guardians!’

Around them, pirates hooted and jeered, swinging and bouncing on the riggings and balustrades, waving their pistols and swords around their heads in their excitement. The Guardians huddled closer together, their weapons raised. Jack looked around at their numbers, the glare from the lights leaving black dots flashing in front of his eyes. He blinked, shaking his head to clear them, and glanced at Sandy and Pitch on either side of him.

‘So… who wants the ones on the left, who wants the ones on the right?’


End file.
